And Nothing But The Truth
by K. East
Summary: At Cardiff University, two people cross paths and are immediately met with mystery. For James, it's her untold past and her oddly familiar best friend. For Lily, it's his frequent disappearances and his infamous dog, Blackie. What are they hiding? L/J.
1. In Which We Set The Scene

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter one**

The girl, 18, hates the fall. The fall means bitter wind against her skin and droopy leaves beneath her feet - essentially, the awkward stage between summer and winter, neither pleasantly warm nor icily beautiful. The teenage stage of the Year.

She traipses through the courtyard on this particularly chilly day, red hair down beneath her soft felt cap, breath clouding the air.

"It's a good day to stay inside," someone comments as she passes, surely heading for shelter themselves. She just nods. A good day indeed, but it is November 10. A very important November 10.

In fact, it is November 10, 1978, and it is the second anniversary of her father's death, which means that the girl, normally the type to stay inside, reading over hot chocolate or listening to the wireless, is now looking for a park bench. _The_ park bench.

The park bench where, in fact, her father had first met her mother. Where, on every important anniversary or holiday, she will soon find herself, studying. Not crying, not talking - just studying. Being where he's been is enough.

The girl's name is Lily Evans, a name that she can't really confess to liking. It is too short, too simple. The last name is sharp and plain, and the first name always has boys giving her lilies, which she detests. Her middle name - Emily - isn't much better. Common. Bread-and-butter.

The park bench is in a courtyard just in front of the main building where, as of that August, she goes to school - Cardiff University in Wales. It is a really beautiful college, looking almost like a castle with its statues, belfry, and majestic columns. In the spring, Cardiff's trees blossom into beauties of pink and green, and students sprawl on the lawns with their books. It'd been Lily's dream since childhood to attend here.

Settled on her bench, she can make out the figures of several other students who opted for fresh air, mostly draped in leather jackets, the women wearing pants instead of skirts, the men pretending not to be cold.

One such person is a lone figure walking the perimeter of the lawn. His dog follows him, only breaking away to sniff the occasional tree.

Lily smiles a bit. She doesn't know the student, but she knows the dog; his name is Blackie, and he is infamous among the Cardiff girls. A friendly fellow, he'd taken to wandering the campus while his owner was, presumably, in classes. Girls began to feed him sandwiches or bring dog cookies from home, and, although his collar holds no identification tag, his name is known to be "Blackie" because it's all he responds to.

Truthfully, no one notices the owner, though he is very happy to let people pet, feed, and otherwise harass his dog, and that's enough.

Lily glances down at the book in her lap. She is a Journalism student, and she has a lot of homework to do... but... in the back of her mind, she feels it isn't even necessary.

Because she's already graduated another school with flying colors.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Lily, the average freshman college student, with an average background and average family, making average income and aspiring to be an average person, isn't average at all. She is a witch, and a very good one at that.

She'd attended the school for magical children from the age of eleven, dropping out of her then-primary school to live at the boarding school in Scotland. Still, her parents hadn't hesitated to push "Muggle" - that is, nonmagical - education as well. So she pursued that in the summer, getting as much finished as possible, stuck between two completely different cultures.

Now that she is a fully licensed, adult witch, Lily has turned to qualifications in her first world, fulfilling the dream of having a college degree.

It is certainly worth the effort, and the money is really a side thought for the well-to-do (yet strangely frugal) Evans family.

The pair is approaching her study place now, and as they pass she offers up an obligatory smile; he tips his hat and says, "Wotcher." And Blackie just laughs.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This is just a taste of what's to come after _We All Fall In Love Sometimes_. I hope you enjoy the little "sneak peek" I have here (the whole first chapter, hmm). I will probably start actively updating this after I finish _WAFILS._ (Waffles, hehe...)


	2. In Which James Appears

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter two**

The boy dries his hair with a towel, taking a moment to peek in the foggy mirror and check for bags under his eyes. It's not caused by insomnia, merely stress, and even if it were insomnia there isn't much Remus can do about it.

Remus is one of the lucky few freshman students at Cardiff University to live in a student flat rather than a dormitory. It's not a considerable improvement, but he does get a room to himself, and for a person like him, privacy is of utmost important.

He's short for a man, only five foot ten, and there isn't much hope for a growth spurt now, either. With medium brown hair and medium brown eyes, he looks extremely normal. He's anything but.

Remus dresses, pulling on the casual Muggle clothes his mother had helped him choose – a blue polo shirt and slacks, for which he is sometimes made fun of.

Towel still in hand, he fairly flings open the bathroom door and walks into the narrow, tiled main room, where his roommate has just shut the door behind him, tossing his hat on a hook.

"James," the eighteen year-old says in a pained voice, "Please put the dog outside. You know I'm allergic to him."

"Right, right," his fellow student mutters, mostly to himself. He turns to look at the dog sitting patiently by his heels. "I forgot again."

The door opens again, and James shoos the dog out, saying, "You always get me in trouble, you prick. Why do you always do that?"

The dog whines in protest, stopping to scratch its ear pitifully.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll get a flea collar." James shuts the door again, sighing and shaking his head. "Sorry, Remus."

"It's okay." Remus leans against the wall and releases a heavy sigh. His hands go in his pockets. "Hey, I'm going to be gone the next couple of days. Stuff to do, you know."

"For the magical world, huh?" The other boy, 19, laughs bitterly. His dark hair, which sticks out in virtually all directions, is made even messier as he runs a hand through it. "Fun, isn't it, dividing time between two worlds?"

"It's a weird way of doing things," Remus admits. "But if there's anything you want while I'm there…"

"Actually, I've got a letter for Dumbledore – if you don't mind."

"I'll take it down to post."

"Let me get you some money," James tells him quickly, moving past him into his own room. His voice calls through the open door, "It's priority, so it'll cost a bit more… damn, where's my wallet?"

"Under the mattress," Remus says back, crossing his arms.

James reappears in the doorway, clutching a leather billfold. "How'd you know that?"

"Number one hiding place for valuables," he replies blandly, accepting the handful of silver coins. "I'll probably be back on Monday for classes, so try not to mess the place up too much, okay?"

The sophomore nods.

"And don't let that dog in."

He nods again.

"Alright, bye." And Remus Disapparates, or disappears, leaving James all alone in the apartment.

Blackie's outside, but honestly he doesn't care, not wanting to invoke Remus's fury by letting "that dog" in. So instead he heads in to take a shower, leaving his clothes in a pile on the floor.

After the shower, James doesn't bother to dry his hair but pads straight into the tiny kitchen where the telly is. That is the extent of luxuries the flat offers: two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, an entryway… the best features are the stove, the blender, and the telly.

James is a wizard, just like Remus, but he's not here for the education. In fact, having barely any background knowledge whatsoever, James is failing most of his classes: all that's keeping here is a stack of forged documents and a lot of money.

No, his main purpose here is not to earn a degree (he'll be lucky if he graduates) but to learn, learn to assimilate, to blend in. To take the Muggle culture at Cardiff and make it eventually his own.

James secretly wants to be an Auror, a Dark wizard catcher; even though he may never, ever take the three-year training course necessary to becoming one, he can still be helpful in fighting Dark wizards. It's an ongoing war right now, and although college is a convenient escape, one day the information – the experience will be useful to him.

Just not… _immediately_.

When James flips on the telly, there isn't much. Weather reports. Rugby. A special on twelve-piece bouquets at Lola's Garden Shoppe. All the things he likes to watch, he decides, opting for the rugby game.

He slides down in his chair, props his feet on the table, and closes his eyes.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This is dedicated to my awesome big brother who just moved away to college... I love you Coco...


	3. In Which There Is An Interruption

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter three**

The professor drones on and on, a happy, familiar hum in Lily's ears. She's taking notes on a record pace, only scribbling down what key words she can. She's determined to get the most out of what has been called "the finest education in Wales."

The lecture is interrupted, however, by a couple girls giggling at the back of the room. When she cranes her neck around to see what's going on – the professor is glaring – she isn't surprised.

"It's the dog, sir," one of the women explains as students around them nod. Minutes are ticking away, but no one notices, enamoured with the dog.

He's a shaggy, black creature, medium-sized, but he struts around the room as if he is a person, only stopping to let girls scratch his ears affectionately, closing his eyes in obvious enjoyment before continuing.

As Lily watches, Blackie makes two rounds of the lecture room before lying down by her feet, chin on paws. He looks up at the professor as if to say, _Continue_.

"Mr. Blackie must be the most learned out of all of us," the professor jokes, though looking slightly harassed. "Very well. Continuing with the concept I was previously speaking on…"

Lily returns to her notes, but she can't quite concentrate by now, not with the new wave of discussion going on behind her, nor with the dog now leaning up against her shin, legs stretched out in front of him. When he whimpers a bit, Lily gives him an obligatory scratch with her toe, and he sighs.

When class ends twenty minutes later, she gathers up her books and glances at the dog. He doesn't move.

"You have to get up now," she tells him. Blackie lifts his head and stares at her. "Class is over, you know. The professor's going to shoo you out anyway."

The dog heaves a sigh and climbs to his feet, tail drooping. He lifts his leg to scratch an ear before looking plaintively back up at Lily, obviously waiting for her.

She spills all her belongings into her bookbag, draping it over one shoulder. With the dog at her heels, she exits the classroom and checks her watch. "No more classes for the rest of the day," she says, casting a look toward Blackie. "I don't suppose you'd want to come to the café with me. You've got places to be, too, I'll bet."

The dog woofs, which the girl takes for affirmation, but instead is revealed to be a bark of greeting as his owner walks up.

"_There_ you are, you stupid mutt," he says, staring down at his dog. "What were you thinking? Just because I locked you out of the house –" He seems to notice Lily then, shifting from foot to foot awkwardly. "Oh, hello. He seems to have taken a liking to you, then."

"He's a good dog," she says with a bit of nervous politeness in her tone.

"Eh. Dumb creature, but I love him." As the owner says this, Blackie begins (shamelessly) to pee on the walkway, drawing looks of amusement and disgust from passersby. "_Blackie_…"

Lily laughs and sticks out her hand. "Lily Evans. I like your dog."

He hesitates, eyeing her up as if to see exactly how sincere she really is. Then, he shakes her hand, warm grip nearly squeezing the bones out of her. "James Potter. I like him, too."

She grins a little, though secretly wondering how a person who keeps to himself so much could have such a… _firm_ handshake.

"So," James says casually, "how'd you meet this jerk?"

Lily looks around before realizing they were still talking about the dog. "Well, obviously, he's on roll for a couple of my classes," she jokes. She returns the laugh. "But I see him around campus a lot, like every else."

He raises an eyebrow. "I hope you're not one of the people feeding him extra biscuits, because he's fat as it is."

"Guilty as charged."

James groans. "Oh, no. Could you please stop? It's damaging to his health."

"He can't be that far gone," she suggests. "How old is he? Four? Five?"

"Er…" he casts the dog a glance. "Probably about two."

Lily watches the dog out of the corner of her eye. Up until now, he's not shown any indication that he knows he's being talked about, but grin permanently on his face, Blackie looks up at her and wag his tail. _Keep up with the biscuits,_ he seems to say. But Lily just shrugs.

"You're right, I'll stop. Sorry!"

James smiles a little bit. "Look, were you heading to another class? I can walk you there if you want."

She catches the suggestion in his tone and blushes, shaking her head. "No, I was only going to a café down the road… I don't have any more classes today, thank you."

"Surely you want some company on the walk there?"

"No, no," Lily insists, bright pink by now. "Thank you, again, but I don't want to trouble you…"

"Well, okay…" James glances down at Blackie. "Say good-bye, boy."

Blackie woofs.

* * *

**Author's Note:** So, they meet. I'm currently listening to Panic at the Disco's "Lying is the Most Fun...". And it's awesome.


	4. In Which Sirius Eats Strawberries

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter four**

There is a man named Sirius Black in James's apartment.

Sirius, who is slightly taller than James, walks with a slump in his shoulders. He likes to be on the same level as everyone else, so when around his friends he merely hunches his shoulders and hopes he'll never have another growth spurt.

It's funny, because James is a year older than him. They made friends immediately after meeting on the Hogwarts Quidditch team, the only athletic club the magical school even had.

Sirius sits at one of the two wooden chairs in the kitchenette, watching the television and eating fat, red strawberries from a bowl. He's allergic to strawberries, but he eats them anyway because dietary no-nos don't control Sirius Black's life. Only Sirius Black does that.

As it happens, James chooses this moment to enter the room and say, "Sirius, you're not supposed to eat strawberries. You'll get hives."

"No, I won't," the other man says loudly, shoving a whole strawberry in his mouth. He wipes his sticky hands on his jeans and says through the food, "See?"

"Not immediately," James replies dryly. "What are you doing, anyway?"

The younger boy shakes the hair from his eyes, brushing a hand over his curly brown locks. He doesn't answer for a second. "Watching telly."

James stares for a minute, then sits down as well, taking a strawberry. "My roommate's out."

"I noticed."

"You can hang around for awhile, if you want."

Sirius shrugs, closing his eyes. "Yeah, I was planning on it."

James sighs, and they sit in silence together for a minute. The voices on the television go on talking about the weather (rainy). Finally, the man with glasses rocks to his feet and heads for the miniature fridge. "Want a beer?"

"Sure."

James tosses him a can and pops open his own, raising it in the air. "Here's to looking at you, Sirius. Hiveless."

"Here's to looking at you." Sirius winces. "And I'm not so hiveless, now that you mention it. Are there fleas in this place?"

"That's why dogs aren't allowed inside."

"Am _I_ allowed inside?"

"What the roomie doesn't know can't hurt hi9m," James jokes. "He'd probably sneeze up a storm, though."

Sirius whimpers and fidgets in his seat. "Ow…" Apparently his itchy allergic reason is… in a sensitive place, to say the least. James doesn't want to ask.

"Your fault," he sighs again, resting his chin on his fist. His face takes on a dreamy expression, and though he's staring right at the television screen, his thoughts seem to be elsewhere. "Sirius?"

"Yeah, mate?"

"What do you think of Muggles?"

His friend blinks at him, perplexed. "What do I think of Muggles?" he repeats.

"Yeah." James smiles a little. "Muggles."

"I don't mind them."

"What do you think about… wizards and Muggles, you know, together?"

"Bully for you if you want to take another chance with a Muggle chick," Sirius replies. "Actually, I was thinking of the same thing myself. One final insult to my poor old mother, wouldn't that be delightful?"

"Be serious," he says. Sirius fixes him with an accusing look.

"Is this about a girl?"

"You really oughtn't be surprised!"

"How am I supposed to read your mind, James?" Sirius sips his beer, glancing out the window. "God, I wish I could travel right now."

"You know how to Apparate."

"But I haven't got money."

"Then wait for me to get off on holiday, stupid. Don't change the subject, Sirius! What do you think?"

"Do you really like this girl?"

James shrugs. "I haven't talked to her much, but I think so. She's… yeah, I think so, Sirius."

"Well then, bloody hell! Mate…" Sirius swivels in his chair, fixing him with a feverish glare. It's startling; James nearly topples out of his seat trying to get away. "Why on _earth_ would you ask me if you already knew the answer?"

* * *

**Author's Note:** And so things begin to speed up. We already know now that James is crushing on someone (if you can't guess who, there is something wrong with you). Sirius has made his appearance (and he's very important to this story)!

Please review, even if it's just to say "I like it" or "I don't like it." Feedback is always appreciated.


	5. In Which There Is A Tour

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter five**

Lily meets Remus on Monday, after her three classes that day, in a little café by the docks. Cardiff, Wales is a beautiful city, and Lily loves this particular café.

They order dinner, and Lily turns to him as soon as the waiter leaves. "So… how are you?"

"Better than you'd expect," he admits, rubbing his neck. "Exhausted, of course, but I've recovered pretty well."

"That's good." She looks down. "Did you get any news while you were in?"

"I got a copy of the paper from one of the nurses," he says. "I'll give it to you later when we're not in public. But… I did skim through it. Things seem to be getting worse, Lee."

Lily sighs and pokes a fork at her salad, not entirely sure when she'd received it. "It's a bit of a relief, getting away from it all. Almost makes me want to stay out here, you know? Pretend there's no such thing as magic."

"Well, I wouldn't quit entirely," Remus replies, "but if going to college is good for anything, it's a well-deserved vacation."

"The job opportunities are nice, too," she teases.

"Yes, well, being a werewolf does put a damper on my magical career."

The two friends look at each other a little bit, not sure whether to smile or sigh. Finally, Lily breaks the silence again, saying,

"Good food here."

"Yeah, yeah, it really is."

They poke at their food, which neither has actually tasted.

"So, how do you like Cardiff, anyway? I haven't gotten to see you much these past few months," she admits.

Remus laughs, a little tiredly. "I'm going to be honest – the work is stressful, not having any schema. I'll probably flunk my classes."

"Keep trying," she urges. "I'll help you with your homework. I want to graduate next to you, Remus, you know that."

Remus smiles wearily, thinking of how he'd missed graduation at Hogwarts. Lily held it against him for days, until he finally explained why. They already were best friends, but now they are inseparable.

More small talk is made, they eat their meals, and they pay the check, exiting the café. Since everything is within reasonable walking distance of the dorm halls, they walk back together.

"I want to see your flat," Lily says as they stroll along. "I wish I'd applied for one with you; then you wouldn't be stuck with some stranger…"

"It's okay," he says. "The guy's not so bad. It's this way, I'll show you."

"What time is it?"

He checks his watch. "Almost nine. Wow. We must've spent at least three hours catching up, huh?"

She laughs, leaning on his shoulder as they walk. He _humphs_ and leans back, pushing her a bit to the side. She sticks out her tongue. "This is a bit like Hogwarts, isn't it? Minus all the magic, I mean."

"Minus Dumbledore, History of Magic, the Whomping Willow…"

"Hagrid, playing Gobstones, mean Madam Pince," she adds, nostalgic.

"The talking portraits, the Room of Requirement, the Pink Lady…"

They look at each other and smile sadly.

"This is my place." Remus stops outside of one quaint little apartment, digging his key out of his pocket. He swings the door open, and she follows him in.

It is small, and not particularly luxurious, but Lily likes it. It's homey, at least, with the general mess that's been left behind – the clothes on the floor, the unwashed dishes in the sink. "Will your roommate mind me here?" she asks.

"He's not home," he says, thinking of the dog usually hanging around outside the door. "He'll probably be back tonight, but don't worry about it."

He gives her the grand tour of the place, excluding James's bedroom (a beautiful total of three rooms: bathroom, kitchen, and a brief glance into his own room). Finally they opt to sit in the kitchen, not eating (because they already have), but just talking. Lily is filled with homesickness when she realizes it's the first good talk she's had with a friend in a while. She even missed his birthday, November 2.

"Remus?" she says quietly when he observes the time – eleven o' clock.

"Yeah, Lee?"

"Can I…" she blushes. "I mean, your roommate's not here… could I -"

"Stay here?"

"Well, yeah – the heating in my hall's broken, you know, and I don't…" She doesn't want to be alone, but she can't quite bring herself to say that.

"Of course! I mean – it'll be just like old times, right?" he leans against the island, eyes soft.

She brightens a little. "Yeah! Remember the time we fell asleep on the common room couch –"

"- and those first years found us the next morning, thinking we'd been drugged? Yeah." They both laugh, the brief awkwardness between them broken. "God, the reciprocations for that."

"All the girls in our year pestered me for days afterward, wanting to know if we slept together."

Remus snorts. "Well, their delusions aside, I do need my sleep… why don't you change in the bathroom? I'll grab you some pyjamas of mine from the bedroom." He hops out of his chair and goes after the promised pyjamas.

Minutes later, Lily crawls beneath the cover beside Remus as he reaches to turn off the lamp. They face each other, blinking sleepily in the dying remains of alertness. Her voice, cracked and quiet, breaks the silence. "Remus?"

"Hm?"

"Thank you."

"Hey, shut up." He reaches across and gives her shoulders a squeeze. "What are friends for, huh?"

* * *

**Author's Note:** Remus and Lily are just really close friends. I swear.

No, but really... I just wanted to portray how very close they are to each other. They're like brother and sister, without the sibling rivalry. I think you'll see that as the story moves on.

Typing this out was very boring for me, as I want to stop setting the scene and move on to the plot... c_c

Please review!


	6. In Which Remus Won't Be Bothered

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter six**

_Grrr_.

Remus blinks awake, and, yawning, he reaches to rub the sleep out of his eyes. Reality doesn't so much crash down on him as seep into his conscience when he observes Lily still curled up under his covers, fast asleep. A quick look at the clock tells him it's only six, a truly ungodly hour for a student who only takes two or three classes an afternoon.

_Grrr._ A growl comes from the doorway.

This time his ears pick up the noise, and he tipsily sits up, groaning at the sudden rush of blood to his head. After he's somewhat oriented, he stares at the dog in the doorway of his bedroom.

Blackie is standing just beyond the threshold, clearly not wanting to step into his room. The shaggy dog's ears are laid back, his tail stiff and straight out, and he growls again, lips pulling back from his teeth a little.

The man lets out a shuddering breath. He hates dogs.

"Remus?" Lily says quietly, now awake. She's still lying down, bemused and sleepy. "What is it?"

"Nothing, Lee," he replies flatly, not taking his eyes off Blackie. "It's just my roommate's dog, that's all."

Lily shoots up in bed, hair falling free around her shoulders. "His _dog_?" she repeats, horrified. Blackie growls again, a low, penetrating kind of noise.

"Yeah. Some… stupid mutt that keeps coming in the house," he says angrily. "Out! Go away, Blackie!"

"Oh, damn," she whispers, rolling out of bed to grab her belongings off the floor. "Remus, I'm sorry, I gotta go -"

He breaks his focus away from the (retreating) animal, instead looking at Lily. "Why?"

"I - just… have to," she says apologetically. "I'll explain later, but I have to Apparate, okay?"

"I don't know about that, Lee. Where are you headed to?"

"My dorm. No one will notice, I swear, and I doubt your roommate is awake anyway, right?" she glances at her friend with a panicked expression.

"It wouldn't make a difference -"

"Just… tell him a vase broke or something. I'll bring back your pyjamas tomorrow, bye!" and with a _crack_, she disappears.

Remus is left staring at the spot where she left, and it seems like many minutes pass before James appears in the doorway, tired and disheveled. Still in his boxers, his glasses sit askew on his nose, and his hair is a frightening mess.

"I put the dog outside," he offers tentatively. "Sorry about that, Remus. I'm really not sure how he got in. Did I hear someone Apparate just now?"

Remus falls back into his pillows, staring at the ceiling. "Yeah. A friend of mine."

Grinning appreciatively, James leans against the wall and says, "Magical chick, huh? Do I know her?"

"Doubt it," he says, closing his eyes.

"Oh." There's some silence. "God, do I really miss Hogwarts."

"Everyone says that," Remus replies, wondering if James would go away soon. Maybe if he stops talking.

"Want some breakfast? As long as I'm up."

"No." Remembering his manners, he adds, "Thank you."

His roommate nods, and a bit of silent understanding is passed between them. _I don't want to be bothered right now._ Pleasantries are over, and he turns away, shutting the door behind him.

* * *

**author's note:** Hi!

I know this is an awfully short chapter and doesn't explain much, so I'm going to try and upload chapter seven as well. But I want to warn you - my computer has a virus, so I'm only able to get online using my mom's laptop, which is a rare event. I might not upload chapter seven now because I have a bit of a headache.

In any case, please please please review. It is so motivating and uplifting to get feedback from readers, even if it's critique. So do take a few seconds out of your day to leave a comment! :)

Next on _And Nothing But The Truth:_ In Which We Reminisce


	7. In Which We Reminisce

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter seven**

The favorite part of James's day is lunch time, that brief hour between his biology and his maths classes that he uses to jog down to a local restaurant - he doesn't care which one - and get some good food in his stomach.

Usually he is accompanied by Blackie, but today he has Sirius, who most obligingly takes his motorbike up on campus to pick him up. Rather than look silly riding in the side car, James clings on for dear life as Sirius recklessly weaves his way through traffic, breaking at least a dozen laws just to find a good parking spot.

"One of these days you'll end up killing me," he repeats over and over as they stumble - a little dizzily - into a café and sit down. Sirius just laughs, a little bitterly.

"Not if Voldemort does first. Have you read the news lately?"

James averts his eyes, opting to stare at his menu instead. After a minute of thought, he replies, "I'm having all my papers sent to my parents."

Sirius's eyes soften, if only momentarily. It would take an eagle's eyes to spot it, but he hosts a soft spot for the Potters - when he was only sixteen years old, he ran away from home, and they took him in as a second son. It was truly the kindest thing anyone had ever done for him, considering all the stupid stunts he'd pulled in the past.

"It's getting worse," the boy finally says, fixing his eyes on his friend. "Much worse."

"Do you really want to talk about this here?"

"I'm just making conversation, keeping you updated," Sirius replies wanly. "Maybe it's time to quit Cardiff."

James snorts. "And help out where I belong, right?"

"Right." When this doesn't seem to convince him, Sirius adds softly, "After you left I still had to go through another year of Hogwarts all by myself, if you don't recall. Depending on your mum and dad when they'd already got you out of the nest just felt wrong, mate."

"It's not a problem anymore."

"It is."

"Is not."

"Can I help you boys?" a waitress looks at them expectantly, and the issue is put to rest - if only momentarily.

"I'd like a blueberry muffin and black coffee, please," James says, flashing her a smile. She nods, not writing it down but apparently committing the order to memory.

As if to test her capabilities, Sirius orders turkey and pepperjack cheese on wheat bread, with a side of two over-hard fried eggs and pineapple-orange juice - in a frosted glass, please.

Once she leaves, there's a loud sigh from the eight year-old. "You're so stubborn, James. Is college really that important?"

"It is," James insists, crumpling a napkin in his fist. He hasn't really eaten all day, so to appease his growling stomach he decides to down an entire glass of ice water in one o, shuddering a little before setting the glass down. "I don't think you get it."

"Enlighten me, please."

"Okay." He swallows. "Even with the war going on, and with you having no place to go, and with my mum and dad getting on in years, I really want to stay. Just to be really selfish for once and do what I feel like, not for any good reason - that's a great thing, Sirius."

"Well, it's also pointless!" His friend growls in frustration. "We're needed. We're needed on the war front, _now_. I don't think you have _time_ to learn to be a Muggle, and there are a lot of damned good Aurors who haven't done anything similar."

"I'll be the best. Besides, you're just a kid fresh out of school, Sirius. How would you _know_?"

"You're only a year older than me," Sirius reminds him fiercely. His expression is now icy, as well as his tone. "You know what? I think this is just a ruse."

James raises an eyebrow. "Now you're just goading me."

"No, no." He laughs sharply. "I get it. You just want any excuse to be with your chick, right? The _girl_ always distracts you from your goal, James; I thought you knew better than that."

"It is _not_ a ruse," the black-haired man states firmly. Sirius merely shakes his head in disbelief. "God, how could you say that?"

"Food," the waitress cuts in, placing the orders in front of their respective owners. Blueberry muffing for James - who devours it on the spot - and sandwich and eggs for Sirius, who barely looks at them and instead takes the juice.

"I'll tell you how," Sirius says, taking a sip. "Excuse me? I ordered pineapple-orange juice, and this is clearly strawberry-orange juice. I'm deathly allergic to strawberries, you know."

"I am so sorry, sir," cries the waitress, who looks younger than the boys themselves. She takes the glass from Sirius's hands. "I'll get a new one right away, sir."

As she bustles away, Sirius calls after her, "and could you get that frosted glass this time?"

James shakes his head in amusement and embarrassment. "Here you are telling me college is a waste of my life, and you're still torturing waitresses in Welsh cafés."

His friend shrugs. "When in Wales, do as the English do."

"That makes no sense at all."

Sirius sticks out his tongue.

"You're not funny, Sirius."

He sighs. 'James, let me ask you something… if you were pregnant, what would you do?"

James screws up his face. "If I were - what are you on about, mate?"

"Just answer. If you were pregnant, what would you do? Walk around as a really pregnant Muggle man all day, or go back home to raise the child?"

"Go back home to raise the child, I suppose," James says, desperately hoping it will never come to this. He feels a bit sorry for any Muggle - nay, any person at all - to overhear their conversation. It's a little strange, even from an insider's point-of-view.

"Right," Sirius says confidently. "You would never throw away the responsibility of raising your child on a stupid whim."

"I guess not…"

"So tell me, James," he continues, poking his eggs with a fork in false cheeriness, "why would you throw away the responsibility of fighting Voldemort?"

"Please leave me alone, Sirius."

"It's the bird."

"I already told you, it is _not_," James snaps.

"It _is_."

"Just - stop badgering me about it, hey? Blimey."

Sirius shuts up, but doesn't tear his eyes away from his friend for a moment as he stuffs half his sandwich into his mouth. He chews loudly, open-jawed, obviously trying to get on James's nerves.

It works.

"I don't know why I agreed to go to lunch with you," the student finally says crossly, picking at the remains of his blueberry muffin. He hadn't been eating his food so much as torturing it, and now crumbs all over his hands and clothes prove it.

Sirius raises an eyebrow at this, but doesn't comment. He only says, "It's because we're best friends."

Yes. It's true, of course. They've been best friends for an unbelievably long time.

"What do you really want me to do?" James asks quietly. "It can't just be you want me to go home and put myself on the frontline as your personal shield, can it?"

There is a brief pause. Sirius looks down. "I don't like your girl."

He stares. "What?"

"I just… don't. We promised to be honest about things like this, and I'm being honest."

"You don't…" James starts to choke on his food, and Sirius, unable to do anything, just watches until his friend can catch his breath. When he speaks, it's more of a croak. "Even though you've never talked to her, you don't like _Lily_?"

"That's right," Sirius says evenly. "I don't."

"What - why?"

"She doesn't sound like your type," he replies, lifting the glass of juice - which has reappeared in front of him - to his lips. He watches his friend over the brim of his cup for a reaction.

"What's my type?" James's eyes go a little dark, and he leans back in the booth, crossing his arms.

"To be honest, I think we both know -"

"Sirius. Not here. Not now." The man pushes his plate away, and he looks a little sick. "We've got to let that go. I was - lost, I was confused -"

"You were _young_?" Sirius challenges. "You were stupid? News flash - you're still young! You're still stupid! We both are - but you're the one throwing _both our lives_ away and forgetting what I've been trying to tell you all this time!"

He only stares. It's not the argument. No, his friend's outburst doesn't surprise him a bit. It's just… the mistakes he's made in the past. The lies he's told. The friends he's letting down. All of his burdens are coming back to rub themselves in his face.

Sirius looks the same way. Pained.

"Well," James finally says coldly, "no one's keeping you away from the war front. Go, if you're so dead set on getting yourself killed."

"_You're all I have left_," Sirius says sadly.

* * *

**Author's note:** So, I pretty much love this chapter because it was really fun to write (although it took several tries) and it was very carefully executed for the most part. By the end of this story, you should be able to re-read this chapter and draw a whole new meaning from everything they say. :) For now, though, I'll let you try and guess what the hell they're talking about.

I hope everyone is wondering right now why Sirius doesn't like Lily even though he told James to go for it a couple chapters ago. :3

Oh, and also, I need to consult someone about the direction this story is taking. I've written over thirty chapters now and it is nearing a turning point, but I have two different endings I've thought through. In order to continue I need to choose one, and I was hoping one of you might want to help me decide. :) Please PM me if so!

Please review. It would mean so much to me.


	8. In Which There Isn't Much

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter eight**

James heads straight out to the bench in the courtyard the next morning, dog at his heels. It's a cold morning, frosty, but just as he predicted Lily is outside again, scribbling something on a yellow legal pad.

"Wotcher," he says brightly, though there's a frog in his throat. She kind of grins up at him, happy to see him.

"Hullo, James. Walking Blackie?"

"Oh, yeah," he laughs, any nervousness dissipating. It seems Lily is too easy to talk to - his tongue, he's afraid, might slip while around her, and that wouldn't be good at all. "He needs to lose weight, that's for sure."

Blackie whines plaintively and looks up at James.

"May I sit?"

"Of course," she says, casually patting the seat beside her. He takes it, heaving a big sigh. "Cold day, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah. Can't wait until it clears up, actually."

"It's my favorite," Lily replies frankly. "Not the fall - I hate the fall - but it's days like this, just teetering on the edge of winter, that makes me really hopeful for Christmas and all the other good things in December."

He laughs again, a soft _ha, ha, ha_ that reminds her of - well, she isn't sure what it reminds her of. A buck, maybe, throwing its antlers back and giving a frosty _huff_ in the winter air. It's a pleasant sound.

"Personally, I love summer," he says, knitting his hands behind his head. He leans back and half-closes his eyes while scratching Blackie's ear with his booted toe. The dog leans into it, all other troubles forgotten at the riddance of fleas. "It's the best time to do anything. My friends and I sometimes cruise up and down the streets of London, looking for - walls to graffiti." He changes that last bit, thinking _looking for places to plant Dungbombs_ might not go over so well

Lily doesn't seem to notice, only smiles widely. "So you _are_ from London! I guessed, from the way you talked."

"Oh…are you, too?"

"Surrey," she supplies happily.

"Wow." He grins. "Small world after all, eh?"

Lily studies him closely out of the corner of her eye. He _seems_ - well, he reminds her of someone, or someplace. Maybe school, except that's not possible. There's just something so collected about James's attitude that she _knows_ he's who he seems to be, no smoke or mirrors.

Of course, last time she trusted her intuition…

"Tell me about your friends," she says softly.

"Oh." He looks surprised. "Well, there's - there's Sirius, he's my best mate. He's a brilliant guy, really. Would've come to Cardiff, too, except he didn't have the money for it…"

"What a shame. Couldn't his parents have helped a little?"

James swallows. "His parents aren't - aren't the best people. They never would've wanted him to go to college, and he'd never ask them for money. Wouldn't ask anyone for money, really."

"He sounds like an honest person."

"He's… yeah, I guess you can put it that way," James concedes, looking at his feet. Blackie wags his tail. "And I've got a friend named Peter, too. He's a real hoot."

Lily grins. "How so?"

"Oh, he's just great. Never too much into making trouble like I - like Sirius is, but he's still a super guy. Always the reasonable one. The designated driver," he adds, and the redhead laughs.

"Sounds like you two just trick him into it every time."

"That too," James admits, casting a long look at her. She is perceptive, that's for sure, but it's a bit frightening, considering all his secrets. All his promises. "Hey," he says softly, "how many classes do you have today?"

"None," she replies, bemused. "Why?"

"I just had an idea. Would you like to hear it?"

"Go ahead, James." His name sounds so _good_ on her lips. It's all he can do not to ask her to repeat it.

James grins. "Want to see something beautiful?"

She grins, too. "Okay. Is this an adventure?"

"You bet it is."

* * *

**Author's Note:** I know, I know. This chapter sucks and nothing actually happens. Forgive me! Please bear with me until I get more chances to update and/or the plot starts to get rolling. I have written over 40 chapters of this story and trust me, there will probably never again be a chapter this dull.

Until then... check out my DeviantArt account if you want something new to read, because I'll be doing a mass upload of poetry today.


	9. In Which a Friendship Forms

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter nine**

When James says beautiful, he means beautiful.

Lily has only been in Cardiff for a few months, so she hasn't seen all the sights, but it is hard to believe she could miss _this_ one when it's been nearby so long.

After some encouragement, James finally persuaded her to go walking with him, and now they are both sitting on the dock – just sitting.

Actually, it's unfair to say they are _just sitting_ because they're – they're talking, and they're laughing, and they're waiting for the sun to go down. Blackie is lying between them, head on paws, tail giving a half-hearted wave any time one of them reaches over to pat him on the head.

It's as if they've known each other for years, Lily and James, because despite only having talked once or twice before they're getting along _swimmingly_, a fact James likes.

"I was always a bit standoffish in school," she explains to James, who isn't sure how the friendly girl with him could ever have been "standoffish". She continues, "I only had two good friends, both boys, and I was really shy of the girls in my year."

"Where did you go to school?" he wonders, knowing despite all his hopes that it _couldn't_ be the same place.

"A private school in Scotland," she replies after some hesitation. "It's – well, it's a very obscure little place, I'm sure you've never heard of it before."

"And you only had two friends?" he asks sympathetically. "You know, I only had two friends at school, so my name was fairly unknown. Were they good friends, at least?"

"Well, I did know a girl named Alice, but I wasn't very close to her until just before graduation," she replies, "but yes, they were wonderful. Well – one didn't turn out to be so wonderful, I suppose. There was an accident, you see, involving a really nasty prank someone played on him, and I saved his life. But over time, he just -" Lily trails off, then finishes lamely, "became a criminal."

James sighs. "A prank, huh? Kids can be so thoughtless."

"Not as if I'm _quite_ out of the teens, yet," she jokes, "but you're right. I only wish I knew who did it. I would've beat seven shades of shit out of him."

"That doesn't seem like you."

"You don't know me very well, then."

James smiles.

"The sun's beginning to set," she says softly, looking toward the west. Sure enough, the sky is turning pink around the edges, and the glowing orange ball has begun to sink lower in the sky.

"It looks tired," James murmurs. "As if… heavy with doubt, or guilt, or something, so bursting to full it can barely hold up above the horizon."

"Imagine, the guilty sun."

"'Rise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,'" he adds in a very soft, almost sad voice.

Lily smiles a bit. "You like Shakespeare?"

"No. Just Romeo and Juliet."

"Oh."

"I used to believe in that – love at first sight. I used to think that you could look at a person and just _know_."

She's perplexed. "You don't believe it anymore?"

James folds his hands in his lap and casts a very long glance at her. His face has become flat, unreadable, as he considers his next words. "I believe in love… but it's something that you have to learn to do. No one can love without reason."

"What a strange theory."

"Well, I don't see you coming up with anything better," he jokes, half-grinning. "Hmm, Blackie?"

The dog looks at him and thumps his tail against the dock.

"Do you want to know what I believe?"

"Sure."

The girl swings her feet a little, watching the water ripple and shine in the setting sun. "I think… love can happen any place at any time. When you least expect it. And it can end unexpectedly, too." She turns a little pink. "Imagine, we've only talked a little, and we're already sharing out theories on life."

"It's the sign of the beginning of a good friendship," he tells her solemnly, though a certain glint was in his eye, and she laughs.

They fall into a companionable silence again, both following their own trains of thought. The sun is slowly disappearing below the horizon, and the purple light is slowly turning to grey.

"How old are you?" Lily asks suddenly. He looks at her in surprise. "I mean, I told you I just graduated school in June, so I'm eighteen, obviously, but I've got no idea how old you are."

"Nineteen and some change," he tells her gently. "Twenty in March."

"Oh."

"It's a bit odd. All of my friends are younger than me."

"Well, don't you get along with the other sophomores?" she prods. "After all, not everyone goes to university right out of school, so I know some of the freshman are older than you, even. You can't have so few friends."

"You'd be surprised," he laughs. "Look, the sun's gone."

"It's dusk," Lily tells him. "In day, we belong to the world…at night, we belong to sleep. But at dawn and dusk, we belong to nobody but each other."

The words _each other_ strikes a kind of thrumming anticipation in James's heart, and it is a long time before he remembers to reply. "That's probably true," he says lamely. "Did you think of it yourself?"

"No, someone wrote it. I can't recall who."

"Well…" The man sighs. "We'd better get you back on the campus. You're in a dormitory, right?"

"Yeah."

He climbs to his feet and offers her a hand up, which she accepts gratefully. "I'll walk you back."

There's a bit of quiet, when they briefly make eye contact. Lily's heart trembles. "Thank you…"

* * *

**Author's Note:** This chapter is paired with the "Hide Tide or Low Tide" cover by Jack Johnson. It's beautiful. Please listen to it.

I'm not really one for fluff, but this chapter does lay out some background for future chapters. As for the progress of the hard copy, I'm at around 45 chapters and winding down. It's going to be excellent, I promise.

Please, please, please review. It means so much to me.


	10. In Which There's A Night Out On The Town

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter ten**

Lily collapses onto her bunk bed, staring at the wooden frame of the bed around her. After James walked her to her dorm, she threw her bag on the floor and kicked her shoes off, head spinning.

Now she closes her eyes, thinking everything over. He was such a gentleman, holding the door open, not even going for a kiss on the cheek like many strange boys have. Certainly, Lily hasn't paid much attention to "the dog guy" before, but he is…extraordinary.

"Lily? Back so early?"

It's her roommate, Elle Goldeir, a Muggle who moved in from Scotland. She's not a _really_ nosy girl, but highly observant and never misses a thing despite being asleep all day – it's all Lily can do to keep from being discovered as magical. Granted, it wouldn't matter much, but she _would_ get a rather nasty letter reiterating the Statute of Secrecy.

"Yes, Elle," she says, sitting up on her bed. "I hope I didn't wake you."

"It's alright," the girl says from the top bunk, peering over the side sleepily. "I should get ready for work, anyway. I just wasn't expecting you to return from your date until later."

"It – wasn't a date," Lily protests, blushing, though it's really a futile effort.

"That Potter," Elle sighs, crawling out of bed and climbing down the little ladder. "He's very mysterious."

"What do you know about him?" the redhead asks curiously.

"Well, let's see," she replies as she pulls on a fluorescent green T-shirt, "he's trying to get an architecture degree, but he's already _horribly_ failing most of his basic requirements this year, so it's unlikely he'll make it…"

Lily makes a _hmm_ noise to encourage her to continue.

Elle scratches her head. "He got that dog of his recently, I think, because he didn't have it last year. And he's up at odd hours of night; I passed him on my way back from work at one in the morning, a couple weeks ago. Just said hello and kept walking."

"How odd."

"No doubt. I think he might have insomnia. It was a rather frightening experience for me, though." The girl places her hands on her hips. "I really must get going, Lily."

"Right, right." Lily falls back on her pillow. "Thank you, Elle."

There is no response except the _click_ of the closing door.

Lily lies there for what seems like hours, eyes wide open. Although it's dark out, it's still early in the evening – the sun sets earlier as the weather grows cold.

Around eight o' clock, someone knocks on her door. Lily rises, straightens out her hair, and opens the door – it's Remus, looking jaunty in dark slacks and a polo shirt. Tips of his brown hair poke out from beneath a cap he's pulled half over his eyes.

"What are you doing here, Remus?" she asks in wonder. He grins despite the tiredness that has come to show on his face, and leans in her doorway.

"Taking you out for a night on the town," he says, reaching out to ruffle her hair. She scowls. "C'mon, throw on a coat, and we'll get out of here."

Though pretending to be exasperated, Lily complies, grabbing her green jacket off the back of a chair and pulling her dark red hair into a hasty ponytail. "What's got you in such a good mood?" she wants to know.

"I've no earthly idea," he says, holding open the door. "Blimey, your dorm hall is damp. I thought you were lying when you said it has no heating."

She sticks out her tongue, and they make their way out of the building, blinking and shivering in the frosty air. "How do you expect to go _anywhere_ on a night so c-cold?" Lily chatters.

"I rented a car." Remus nods in the direction of the large student parking lot, and her eyes bug out.

"Can you drive?"

"_Yes_," he replies defensively. "I've got a license, you know. And I've been practicing all week for good measure."

Lily sighs. "You had better be telling me the truth, Remus John Lupin."

"I'm telling you the truth."

They make their way to the parking lot, and after some confusion over which car is the rental – after all, Remus explains, embarrassed, it _is_ pretty dark outside – they find themselves on the road.

"Where do you want to go?"

"I rather thought _you_ had something in mind," Lily shot back, "seeing as you're the one who drove all the way over here from your apartment just to pick me up – not knowing, I might add, if I would even be home."

Remus slows the car, one hand on the wheel, and gives her a _looong_ look. "Why _wouldn't_ you be home, Lee?"

She blushes fiercely, realizing her mistake. "Er – no reason."

"New boyfriend?" he suggests, grinning slyly. "_Lily Emily Evans_, what would your _mother_ say -"

She turns even redder. "Shut up!"

"What's his name? Will I have to have a man-to-man with him- ?"

"REMUS!"

He breaks down laughing, nearly steering the car right into a sidewalk. And soon, she's laughing, too.

* * *

**Author's Note:** The official song for this chapter is "Animals" by Nickelback. It has nothing to do with the chapter. I just like it. XD

Erm, so I realized that I hate the first... twenty or so chapters. But maybe you might like them. If not... erm... sorry?

Please please please review. 3


	11. In Which Blackie Needs A Bath

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter eleven**

"Lily!" A voice shouts as she's exiting a classroom one day. She sighs and adjusts her bag on her shoulder before turning around, sure it is her English professor there to demand why she hadn't been to his 9:00 AM lecture.

It isn't her professor – it's James, looking wonderful in a form-fitting black T-shirt (that reads, "The Clash") and jeans ripped generously at the knees. He jogs up to her, a smile already growing on his face. "Wotcher."

"Hey there," she greets, unable to keep from looking him up and down. "Where's Blackie?"

"Oh," he says dismissively, "outside somewhere. I thought I probably shouldn't take him into the building."

She quirks a grin, nodding in the direction of the classroom. "Well, it's probably best. The Trig professor is allergic to everything, dogs probably included."

"Just like my roommate," James grumbles as they start to move in the direction of the stairs. He takes them, two at a time, as she repeats confusedly,

"Your roommate?"

"Yeah." He shrugs, waiting at the foot as Lily carefully makes her way down (part of her is still wary for that vanishing step, but at least she knows _these_ stairs don't move). "He's allergic to dogs, so he never lets me bring Blackie inside the house."

"But -" _Remus isn't allergic to anything_, she thinks, but she can't quite bring herself to say it. She'd either have to admit that she's been inside his apartment or – tell him they'd been talking about him. Neither option seems very appealing to her. For now, she decides, he doesn't have to know she's friends with Remus.

They traipse out of the building together, and he glances at her, almost expectantly, when they're finally outside. She notices this and shifts from foot to foot awkwardly.

"Do you have another class?" he finally asks. "I'll walk you there, if you want…"

"Oh…" she feels the heat rise to her cheeks, and, embarrassed that she is blushing, blushes even more. "I, er… I don't really want to go, to be honest."

Seeing his disappointed look, she says, "Do you have a class to go to?"

"Just two more," he admits, "but I'm failing anyway, so I don't see the point of going."

They glance at each other awkwardly.

"So," she finally ventures, "if we're both free, then… do you want to go get a bite to eat or something?"

A grin spreads slowly across James's face, and he pats her on the shoulder. "Lily, I thought you'd never ask."

The bite to eat, however, is quickly forgotten when Blackie bounds up, tongue lolling out, tail hurtling back and forth like a flag being waved. He looks atrocious – matted into his medium-length fur are dozens, if not hundreds of burrs, and mud has caked his coat until it stands up in stiff black little bristles.

"What on _earth -_" James kneels and grabs the dog's paw, staring at the blistered appendage. "Where did you _go_ while I was gone?"

Blackie whines plaintively. Lily, too, drops to her knees, her eyes brimming with compassion.

"Oh, you poor _dear_, you look as if you've been running through the hills all day." She fixes James with a steely look, and he immediately goes on the defensive.

"Okay, so he was out last night. Fairly normal…"

She stroke's the dog's head tenderly, saying, "Let's go get him cleaned up, okay? We can eat later, he's obviously suffering."

James stares at the bright-eyed, smiling Blackie with disbelief. The dog wags his tail cheerfully. "Oh, yeah, he's definitely suffering. The mutt's bloody bipolar."

Some minutes later, after Lily all but forces James to carry the dog to her doorstep, Blackie is in the tub (now looking considerably less happy) and dripping wet, courtesy of the shower head.

"Human shampoo will have to do," Lily says, returning to the room and handing a plastic bottle to the miserable James, who is sitting on the floor eyeing Blackie with a mix of amusement and resent.

"Good," he says dully, staring at Lily. She stares right back. "Er, do you want me to -?"

"Yup," she replies. "Just lather it in."

"Right…" Tentatively, almost in disgust at the dog (who actually is not that filthy, after Lily painstakingly removed each burr, clump of matted hair, and tick from his fur with a pair of tweezers) he smears a glob of purple shampoo on the dog's back. Blackie licks his arm as if in encouragement. "Ew."

"It's not that bad," Lily points out, kneeling beside him to reach over and assist lathering Blackie's fur. "It's as if you've never given your dog a bath before."

"He's mostly feral," James explains. "I just put a collar on him so no one tries to take him to the SPCA."

"Oh, that's sweet of you." She smiles, and in a moment of devilish whimsy, he runs his hand across her cheek, smearing purple shampoo on her.

"Hey!" she cries, swiping at it – unfortunately her hand, too, are covered in the stuff. "What was that for?"

"Do I need a reason?" He offers her a naughty grin, and she responds by smearing purple all over the left side of his face. "Why you -"

Shampoo is flung all over their clothes as Blackie, as if wanting to be part of the fun, shakes himself vigorously and yelps in protest; Lily takes this opportunity to steal the bottle from a distracted James and pour a glob in his hair.

Growling, he nearly tackles her to the floor, splattering her with shampoo as he takes the container back. Lily shrieks as they wrestle over the bottle, squirting more purple goop on themselves in the process.

"Jaaames!"

Finally, James, the reclaimed bottle in on hand, rolls his body over hers and pins her to the floor as she wriggles in protest underneath. "I win," he says after catching his breath.

Lily stills and averts her eyes, and their position becomes evident as both blush bright pink. James scrambles off of her, heart pounding, feeling more embarrassed by what he just did than by the fact that everyone in the room is now completely lathered in purple, hair sticking every which-way.

The girl is the first to laugh, nervously at first but then hysterically as Blackie, still dripping and sullen, climbs out of the bathtub and onto James's lap.

* * *

**Author's Note:** What is a love story without a soap fight? For reals, this was really difficult to write, and probably more difficult to type. Whenever I hit writer's block with this story, I just kind of fudge... screw quality. Sigh.

But for the record - do not use human shampoo on your dog, as it may have an allergic reaction. Blackie's just special.


	12. In Which You'll Please Not Call Me Mum

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter twelve**

"You owe me big-time," James says strictly.

"Yes, mum."

"I'll never help you out again if you keep doing stupid things."

"Yes, mum."

"Please stop calling me mum."

"Yes, mum." James glares, and Sirius, who is seated on one of the two chairs in the kitchen, shrugs. "Sorry, mate, it's just that you ruin all the fun."

"Fighting Death Eaters is _fun_?"

"Well, it's not like you'd know differently," he friend replies coolly, holding up a hand. "Look, I've got a brilliant scar here. I kicked serious arse. Why can't you appreciate stuff like that anymore?"

"I dunno, maybe because I've _grown up_," James tells him sarcastically. "Sirius, I love you. You know I love you. But you have to quite making me cover for you!"

Sirius screws up his face, an expression of frustration dominating all the other emotions that threaten to emerge on his visage. "God, you think I _like_ depending on you? I told you, I have no one else."

"You've got to drop that. Your brother -"

"The hell with him." That is the warning tone.

James sighs heavily and drops into the other chair, refusing to look his friend in the eye. "Family" is off-limits to them. They don't talk about the Blacks, because as far as Sirius is concerned, he is one of the Potters. But it is so frustrating for James to see his best friend suffering like this, itching to get away but tied down by others.

Finally, he decides to cross the line. "When's the last time you saw any of them, Sirius?"

Cold silence. Then, in a bitter voice, "King's Cross in July."

"Maybe you should check in. See what's going on, see if anybody's done anything drastic -"

"Oh, I'm sure _Reggie_ is just fine," Sirius snaps. "He's got his Dark Mark he's so proud of, cute little bugger, I'm sure Mum and Dad are still ever so happy -"

James sighs again. He should've known better, _but… it's so difficult_. "I'm not trying to convince you to leave, okay? I _like_ hanging around you. But you need to seriously consider "repenting" and moving back in with them; do you realize how big of a _help_ that would be to the -"

"Just _stop_. The day I go back to that hellhole is the day I string myself up on a -"

"_Okay_." The nineteen year-old gets up again, and begins to pace wildly, pulling on a fistful of hair in frustration. "I get it, I get it. You're not going to take my suggestions because I'm not even helping out. But Lord, I was sworn to secrecy, wasn't I?"

"Not many people can take a man's word nowadays, mate." Sirius watches him carefully, as if to gauge his reaction.

"You believe me," James says simply. A pause.

"Of course I do."

"Then why is it you're so scared I won't join?" he stops, looks his best friend in the eye. "Is it really that you're afraid to go fight without me?"

Sirius's expression softens, if only for an instant, and something that can only be described as nostalgia leaks into his silver eyes. "Yeah. It is."

"Then wait two more years."

"It's been three months and I'm already going crazy, James. I don't think I can last another two years."

"Stop asking me to change."

"I'm _not_ asking you to change, I'm asking you to think rationally. Being here isn't beneficial to you. It's just taking up your time." Sirius releases a long, shuddering breath. "And I swear I don't want to sound demanding or selfish. I'm just being honest."

"Huh." James leans against the kitchen island, eyes focused on nothing as he thinks. "I know."

"You're just hung up on this girl, I think. Lily."

He rolls his eyes. "We've been over this, Sirius. It's not Lily. Yeah, I like her. You _know_ I like her. But it's not just her. Something's telling me to stay… like there's something I haven't quite figured out about the people here."

"What a load of -"

_Knock, knock, knock._

"Your dorm's a mess," Sirius comments suddenly. "Doesn't your roommate care?"

James shrugs, glancing at the door and wondering who could be knocking at this time of night. "He comes and goes. Never around when I am. Odd, that one."

"Maybe he's a wizard."

"I know he is. I saw his wand sticking out of his trunk the first day here, and we had a good chat about it."

_Knock, knock, knock._

"Better get the door, mate."

James walks briskly over to the front door and checks the peep-hole. He looks to Sirius and shrugs, but Sirius shakes his head and reaches for his wand. _Crack_. He's gone.

The student opens the door, and Remus walks in. "Forgot my key," he explains, hanging his jacket on the hook by the door. He gazes around, sees the unfinished drinks on the counter and mud-prints on the tiles. "Is there someone here?"

"Old buddy from Hogwarts," James says nonchalantly, locking the door. "Apparated just before you left. Nothing to take personally, he just doesn't like too much company."

"Fair enough." _Neither do I_, Remus thinks. "Well, I'll turn in now. Night, James."

* * *

**Author's Note:** This is a fairly anticlimactic chapter, so I'm going to upload another one today. I don't have much to say about this in particular though... my feelings on it are pretty neutral.

Please review. I hate to beg, but feedback is of utmost importance to me. I won't stop uploading if I don't get many reviews, but as authors we all know how good it feels to hear what people like and dislike about our work. :) Thank you.


	13. In Which Timing Is Utterly Off

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter thirteen**

The first thing James does on Sunday, December 3 is make scrambled eggs. They're the only thing he actually knows how to make, so every Sunday morning he has scrambled eggs and toast. He's about to start cooking for Remus when he realizes his roommate's door is open. Remus is long gone.

"At bloody four in the morning, too," James grumbles, though he really has no place to criticize, also being up and active at this hour.

Insomnia is really getting the best of James at this point. It's all he can do to catch a few hours of sleep at night, and on most mornings, he looks like death warmed over. Secretly, he's glad he isn't a church-going man because showing up in any such state would be positively humiliating.

He sits and shovels hot, peppered eggs into his mouth, thinking of everything he said to Sirius the day before. Most painful to remember is _I'll never help you out again if you keep doing stupid things._ It's not true - of course it's not true. Sirius is family, and James can't disown him even if he had a mind to.

"You and your damn ideas," he mutters, now crunching on toast. It tortured him the entire night, keeping him awake with thoughts of _should I?_ or _shouldn't I?_

_Too complicated_, he thinks. _Maybe it's best to just ignore it all while I can._

James pushes his breakfast away. He can't finish, not when he feels so sick.

_Because ignoring problems always make them go away!_

"I'm going out," he says loudly to an empty apartment. He grabs his hat, slips on his trainers, and exits, locking the door behind him. He rises up on his toes a little bit to admire the fresh, cold air. Then he looks at the dog lying on the ground beside the door.

"Back so early, are you?"

Blackie pants and wags his tail in response, and James can't help but smile.

"Well, let's go then."

James decides to jog a bit as he hasn't gotten much exercise lately. The dog keeps up with him easily at a steady trot, tongue lolling out. They cut around the block, down the main street, and into the Cardiff campus - over the staff parking lot, past classrooms, to the big courtyard in front.

The branches of the trees are bare and black against the sky, knobby silhouettes of the beauties they must've been before. The air is cloudy with James's frozen breath.

"I should've brought a jacket," he comments to Blackie, slowing.

"That's for sure," someone says behind him.

He swivels around, then relaxes once he sees who it is. "Wotcher, Lily."

The redhead steps up from beside a tree, hands stuck in the pockets of her fur-trimmed coat. She's looking chilled as well, with rosy red cheeks and nose and the wind tickling the ends of her hair. "What're you doing up at four in the morning? On the weekend, too."

"I have insomnia," he explains, "and I decided it wasn't too early for a jog."

"Poor Blackie," she says, smile on the corners of her lips already. "He's probably exhausted."

"He needs to lose some weight," James says nonchalantly. "Why're you out here?"

"I'm always up early on Sunday mornings, but my roommate works late, so I'm trying not to wake her up."

They're distracted just for a moment as the dog at James's feet suddenly barks and takes off running across the campus. Pigeons flutter in all directions.

"Oi!" James shouts. "Where the devil d'you think you're going?"

The dog skids around a building and disappears from sight. There's a long silence.

"Christ," the man mumbles, "now I won't see the bugger for days, I'll bet."

"I'm sure he'll come back," Lily comments amusedly. "He's a bit spastic, isn't he?"

"Yeah." He shifts from foot to foot, then grins gently. "Well, in any case, I guess he'll be the one freezing his furry arse off. My roommate is out, if you want to come back to my place to get warm."

Lily laughs. "James! Just what kind of girl do you think I am?"

"The kind who trusts herself not to do something to stupid." He grins lopsidedly, and a hand goes to his hat, pushing it forward, low on his brow, as his black hair curls crazily out from underneath. "Just to get out of the cold. I promise."

"Well…"

"We have hot chocolate…"

"It's a deal," she laughs, daring to loop her arm in his. The friendly contact makes them both smile secretly. "Lead the way, sir."

Lead he does, though Lily observes that he takes the long route, keeping up conversation while deftly steering her through unnecessary detours. They talk about the weather, school, anything that comes to mind. It's lighthearted, and it's fun.

Finally arriving at the apartment, James releases Lily's arm to fumble for his keys and unlock the door. The apartment smells vaguely like eggs and Remus's distinctive cologne. Although she's been here once before, it's a thrilling experience for Lily.

"Make yourself at home," he says, nodding to the chairs in the kitchen. Obediently, she takes one. "I'll see if I can find the cocoa, get the water boiling…are you cold? Do you want me to adjust the thermostat?"

"It's okay," she assures him, draping her jacket over the back of her chair. "I'm surprised you haven't got goosebumps, being outside today without a coat."

"It's not _that_ cold," he insists, though the temperature had already hit 0°C and was barely rising with the sun. "It's just the wind."

"Either way, it was chilly."

James just grins and shakes his head, bustling around the kitchen for ingredients. In a few minutes, the hot chocolate is ready, and he hands her one steaming mug.

"Marshmallows on top," he says, winking. A slurp from his mug leaves him spluttering. "That's hot!"

"It's the idea," she laughs, gratefully clutching the cocoa. "Thank you, James."

His name throws chills along his spine. James drags his chair over beside hers, and they sip their chocolate together in a brief quiet.

"How're your classes going?" he asks.

"Well. I've got exams just after Christmas holiday, which is pretty frustrating."

"Same here, actually. Calculus is a terrible class to get out of the way, remember that."

"I do have something to look forward to, then," she jokes.

"You're an optimist, aren't you?"

She looks him over once, as if trying to see what he means. It isn't given away in the casual lean of James's frame (though inwardly he is nervous as hell) or the cool tenderness in his eyes (all he wants to do is let the walls down, let her see what he's thinking).

Lily thinks that through all the hope she has, there's no way everyone else in the world has missed what's special about this man.

_He wouldn't choose me if he had a choice, and he does._

"No," she says finally. "I'm a realist."

James doesn't know what to say. They're supposed to be talking about maths, but it feels like years of words have gone by unattended between them.

"Hey," he says, "Why do people call you Lee?" He heard it once, in the hallway.

"It's a nickname. My initials, spelled out."

"L.E.E.," he says fondly, staring down into his ceramic mug. "Pretty initials. Do you like the nickname?"

She shrugs, not knowing where this is going. "For the most part."

"Can I give you a different one?"

"What is it?"

"I haven't really thought it through yet," James says, reaching out to brush his fingertips against her earlobe. She shivers. They both think they know what's about to happen, but just as he locks eyes with her… there is a knock on the door.

* * *

**Author's Note: **What was about to happen? Who is at the door? Why does that person have such terrible timing? Find out in the next chapter, entitled _In Which A Rivalry Forms._

Muahaha! (And yes, I am purposely withholding this chapter to rub the semi-cliff hanger in your faces. Because I'm in a good mood.)

Please review!


	14. In Which a Rivalry Forms

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter fourteen**

Lily slumps with disappointment as his eyes slide out of focus, now more concerned with who's at the door. His hand drops to her knee unknowingly, and she gently pushes it away, saying, "I guess… you should get that."

"I guess…" James gives her a look – almost apologetic, but Lord, she isn't sure. Her heart is thrumming against her rib cage; she's getting lightheaded from the moment. Remembering to breathe is all Lily can do right now.

He's up and at the door in record time, and when he opens it Lily is a little surprised. It's undoubtedly one of the most handsome men she's seen: _tall with a slight slump, wavy brown hair that spirals across those pale cheeks, molten silver eyes and a beautiful nose_ – she reads him like a romance novel, immediately putting him down for "broken hero".

Too bad she currently resents him, because her not-so-broken-hero (okay, she has secretly labeled James as the "untamed romantic") wouldn't have had his concentration broken if it wasn't for that confounded knock…

"Oh," the man – boy? – says quietly in a vapid voice. It isn't deep, exactly, but has a growl to it that makes Lily shiver. "Is it a bad time?"

"It's just Lily and me," James says, stepping away from the door. "Come on in. Want some hot chocolate?"

The man raises an eyebrow but doesn't say more than, "No, thanks."

Lily watches him from her seat as he drops his jacket on the coat rack and slips off his shoes, like he's used to being here. _Does Remus have another roommate I didn't know about?_

"Lily, this is Sirius Black," James explains as he closes the door again. She barely manages to turn her snicker into a cough – names nowadays are so odd. "Sirius, this is Lily Evans."

"Charmed," Sirius says coolly, leaning against the counter, but he doesn't look at all pleased. Lily nods, stiff and awkward. "I'm James's best friend. And you are?"

"His –" she hesitates. His what? "His friend. From school."

_I've heard about you,_ she wants to say. _You're an honest person raised by not-so-honest people. You're a troublemaker, and you're poor, but you've still got someone superb like James in your life, and you look like everything will go your way at some point._

Enough of the inner dialogue.

_Who are you?_

"Well, James," Sirius says stiffly, "I just came by to pick up my records."

"Your records?" James's brow wrinkles, then abruptly smoothes out as he gazes at his friend with slight suspicion. "I'll be back in just a minute." He heads into his room.

"So," Sirius begins immediately, opting to slide the unoccupied chair to his side and take it. His gaze on Lily is calculating, guarded. "How well do you know James?"

"We talk and sometimes go places together," she answers cautiously but honestly. "I just met him this year."

"What do you like about him?"

Her expression grows almost incredulous – eyebrows up, lips slightly parted, head tilted slightly. "Are you _interrogating_ me?"

"Yes." He stares back, as stone-cold as a mortician, not backing down – and neither is she. "Got a problem with that?"

"It's incredibly belligerent, for one," Lily points out skeptically. Already her "broken hero" prediction has gone down the drain. This Sirius person seems unruffled by any aspect of his past… or by social precepts.

"My _apologies_. I've just heard enough about you to feel we can skip pleasantries and be honest." Again, it's as if declaring a challenge. "So let's be honest."

"I don't want to answer unnecessary questions from someone I barely know who has no involvement with me."

Sirius snorts. "You're involved with James, so you're automatically involved with me, dear."

"Package deal, are you?" she asks snidely. Lily has decided – she doesn't like this character one bit. He's too blunt and sardonic, not playful and dynamic like James.

"That's the idea."

"I've got to wonder how that happened."

Sirius leans way back in his chair, shoulders hunched, a finger trailing along his jaw delicately – in thought. Appraising. "You don't have to answer any of my questions. I just thought I'd let you know before it's too late. I'm around."

"Thanks for the caveat," she says lightly, before rolling her eyes. "I don't believe I really needed it."

A soft grin appears as James returns, unnoticed, without any records or things of the sort. His eyes are still fixed solely on Lily. "That's true. I ought to be the least of your worries, dear."

_What is that supposed to mean?_ It's too early for deduction. The enigma that is Sirius Black has barely unfolded, but Lily can tell by one look at his mysteriously blank eyes that he won't be an easy puzzle to solve.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Ahh... so things begin to unfold. I'm really excited about this chapter, because it marks (somewhat of) a starting point in the story. You have to understand that these first chapters have all been a long introduction for something bigger. It's definitely not going to be all calm discussions in "the flat" once all the characters are properly brought in.

I don't want to have to beg for reviews. I hope I'm not that kind of author. But I really would like to hear some more feedback (even just a "like it" or "don't like it"), because it motivates me. Right now the rough draft of _ANBTT_ is 63 chapters and will probably wrap up around 75. They're all fairly short, though. Tell me whether you think that is too long.

Next chapter, currently untitled, will be put up soon! Cheers!


	15. In Which Gravity Reminds Us of Reality

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter fifteen**

Remus and Lily are sitting on the dock together that afternoon, swinging their feet. Her toes barely skim the water, and it's freezing out, but they've got their jackets on, the sun is shining.

She feels a little guilty, bringing Remus to _his_ spot – the dock, where the sunset had enthralled them so – but she thinks maybe _he_ wouldn't mind, would understand.

"I went to visit a potion brewer today," Remus is saying over her thoughts. "Something new's been developed that could – possible – help with my…" he trails off.

"Oh, Remus," she cries softly, "Really?"

"Really. He wanted to test it on me."

"Are you going to?"

"Someone has to." He looks at his dangling feet. "The brewer told me it's been difficult. No one has volunteered, so he can't work out possible kinks. It's hard to find people like – like me. We're mostly hidden."

Lily turns her face up toward him and is saddened to see just how embarrassed and ashamed her friend looks. She curls a hand around his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "A few more fellows like you, they'll find a cure in no time."

"One can dream."

"Yes, one can dream." She leans into his shoulder, and he leans back, the motion familiar and comforting to them, like sitting on Hagrid's steps in Scotland or sliding down the banisters of the long flight of stairs, hoping they didn't suddenly move. Lily is filled with another bubble of nostalgia. "Remus, I love you, you know that?"

"I know. I love you, too, and you're never going to hear me say that again, okay?"

"Okay." She laughs. It's the kind of thing best friends do – they don't need big displays of affection to prove their riendship. They trust eaech other to be the same person and feel the same love as always, and on rare days, like this, they will make that love vocal – just for reassurance.

It's what Lily adores about Remus. He's her constant. She tries her best to be his.

Remus sighs, long and low, watching his feet drag in the water. The tips of his shoes are waterlogged now, but he doesn't care. Until she's ready to leave, they won't leave – even if it means getting frostbite.

As if on cue, Lily shivers, and he obligingly puts an arm around her. "I talked to Dumbledore for you, just like you asked."

"Did you? What did he say?"

"He said if there's ever a way, he'll have someone contact you." He looks at her worriedly. "Are you sure you want to fight, Lee? It's dangerous."

The girl laughs at him. "Of course it's dangerous! But where would we be today if no one was willing to take chances?"

"There's a big difference between gambling with money and gambling with your life. I hope you know that."

"I know that."

Another sigh. "Then I won't stop you."

Lily smiles. "_Thank_ you, Remus."

"Please be careful," he breathes. It's almost inaudible, and he doesn't know if she heard it or not – but she acts as if nothing has been said. Perhaps not.

Remus's thoughts flit to his roommate. James went to Hogwarts a year ahead of them. He often speaks of Dumbledore, and expresses dislike for pureblood elitism. _Maybe he knows how she can help…_

But, on the other hand, James wouldn't like it if a person he didn't know was told all about him. Maybe he'd come to Cardiff for a reason – like to escape a poor reputation.

It wouldn't be fair to throw that back in a man's face – Remus knows enough about trust to suppose that.

They pull away from each other, her hands coming back to rest in her lap. She's almost embarrassed – despite being friends for so many years, "warm, fuzzy moments" can still be uncomfortable at times. Vainly Remus wracks his brain for a subject change, but she beats him to it.

"I was reading the paper this morning, and I saw it would snow soon."

"Oh," he replies lamely. His mind isn't on snow, but images of Lily fighting, Lily killing, Lily dying. "I guess winter is well on its way."

"Yes." She gives a little sigh. "It's going to be a _long_ one. And cold. Sometimes I really resent Britain's weather."

"It's not bad." Lily isn't the killing type.

"It is too."

Remus slumps into his bomber jacket, trying to distract himself from the chills running along his numb hands. He's cold, but not just from the weather. _Stop thinking about it._ "Lee, do you want to go take advantage of someone's heating? Perferably a restaurant or equally entertaining place of interest?"

"If you want to."

"I do want to." Lily isn't the – _stop thinking about it,_ Remus commands himself. _There is only so much you can do. Stop trying to guard her. She's not helpless._

That turns out to be the mantra for the rest of the day. As they're sitting down for a hot meal: _she's not helpless._

As they're walking through the snow, trying to window shop but failing miserably: _she's not helpless._

As they're preparing to part ways, her arms squeezing his waist imploringly in a good-bye hug: _she's not helpless._

_But she is,_ Remus thinks miserably and against his will when he gets home. _She is._

**Author's Note:** I apologize for the wait and for the nothingness of this chapter. I was going to lengthen it, but it would've been disproportionately long and additionally would've messed up the context of the next few chapters. So I will be publishing chapter sixteen tomorrow morning to make up for this. :3 Also, chapters seventeen onward will be a good deal longer, since people have suggested that I reduce the number of chapters and lengthen them instead.

Sooo... please write a review today, even if it's one word long. I really appreciate feedback. :D

* * *


	16. In Which There Is A Fool's Overture

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter sixteen**

James has disappeared.

Lily finds out from Remus, who loves to complain about his roommate and that crazy dog just every now and then, not knowing she has met either. Secretly, she thinks, he harbors a sort of grudging affection for James, though his feelings toward the dog are questionable.

Apparently, she learns, James not only like to exit and enter the apartment at all odd hours of the day, but sometimes he will vanish for days on end with no explanation of where he is going or what he is doing. Sometimes he'll have a black eye, or a hangover, or a stupid idea, or any strange thing when he returns.

"Perhaps he's magical, like us," Lily half-jokes in her letter (she's secretly hopeful it's true), "and he has to divide his time, like us."

Remus, who is apprehensive about the whole thing, only writes back, "Maybe."

He doesn't write much more after that.

But Lily isn't worried if he isn't worried, so she tries not to speculate why James is gone and focuses more on what to say when he comes back. She's itching to talk to him; the only thing she needs is an excuse.

James finally makes an appearance on Friday, walking with Blackie through the main courtyard as usual, and Lily bounds up to him as soon as she's done with classes for the day.

"Hi, James," she says shyly. He grins upon seeing her.

"Wotcher, Lily. Miss me?"

"A little…" _A lot._

"Well, no need to worry about it." The man pulls his hat a little lower over his brow, savoring the chilly air in his lungs. "I'm back now. Just decided to take a couple of days off."

"Well, according to some, you do that an awful lot," she jokes.

"Gee," he says fondly, "not much gets by you, huh?"

She smiles. _And so much gets by you…_

Like the fact that she's a witch.

But honestly, how does one explain magic to a Muggle? It's not plausible. It might not even be possible. Sure, someone had explained it to her family, but that person was trained to do so. He'd think her crazy and _there is the whole Statute of Secrecy to worry about._

Lily's heart sinks, because she knows now there's no way she can tell him. She's heard of such things, but she just – can't – face telling him; if he rejects her, thinks she's nuts or a freak – well, it's not something Lily will be able to handle.

"It's an ugly day," she says, a hint of sadness in her voice. "Frosty, foggy, and ugly. Dead trees everywhere."

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," he says whimsically, reaching down to give Blackie a pat. The dog's been waiting patiently at their feet the whole time. "I happen to think dead trees are gorgeous."

"What a relief. You look like a dead tree," Lily quips, elbowing him gently. He snorts.

"And I'm also gorgeous. Point proven."

"When did you get this ego of yours?" she wonders aloud. "I don't remember it at all."

"It came with the face."

More laughter on both their parts. The atmosphere has lightened considerably now, and Lily doesn't feel so – pressured. She pats him on the arm, still grinning and shaking her head a little.

"Go away less often, okay? I need entertainment, and you seem to serve the purpose."

"I do what I can do, m'lady," James crows, bowing deeply. "Is there anything else you need? Tea? A deep-tissue massage?"

"Don't offer if you can't fulfill."

"Well, I try." He smiles gently, and then adds, "I thought about your nickname, like I promised."

"Oh?" she bites her lip and smiles back. "What did you come up with?"

"How do you feel about 'Llio'? It's Welsh – I guess it originated from the word for 'lion'."

Lily smiles a little wider. "I like it… yes, I think I really do." There's another companionable pause, and then she ventures, "Look, do you want to go inside? I'm sure there are plenty of reasons not to, but… honestly… I'm freezing."

He loops an arm around her shoulder casually. "I thought you would never ask, Llio. Or better yet, let's go out somewhere. I'm starving for some excitement."

His words make her heart jump to her throat and stay there, thudding nervously. "Okay…"

Awkward silence. "Where do you want to go?" he prompts.

"Oh… anywhere." She blushes deeply. "Do you have a car?"

"I have Sirius's motorbike. Is that okay?"

"Alright with me," she replies, leaning into the warmth of his arm. He tilts his head to watch her, a smile tugging amusedly at the corners of his mouth. Finally, he pulls his arm away and instead taps it against the small of her back.

"To the parking lot, then. I've got Sirius's key – he doesn't mind."

Minutes later Lily finds herself seating behind James, hands on his shoulders, on a large, black, and intimidating motorbike. There's only one helmet, so he lets her wear it, shooing Blackie away before taking off.

"Shouldn't you tie him up or something?" she asks over the throaty power of the engine.

"Nah, he'll find something to do," James calls back, revving the bike as they wait for a green light. "If anything he'll go back to the flat."

"Okay…" They take off again.

He stops outside a shady-looking bar, a wooden sign hung over the door that reads – "Wednesdays: Karaoke Night". A couple waitresses in aprons sit outside on the curb, smoking cigarettes and eyeing James up hungrily.

"Are you sure about this place?" Lily asks nervously after one of them quite literally hisses at her.

"The folks are a little odd, but it's not a bad place," James says reassuringly. "Great pizza. Just… stick close to me if you're scared."

"I'm not _scared_."

"Good! Do you drink?"

She hesitates. "Not… _often_."

He opens the door for her, rumpling his hair with his other hand. "If you don't want to, Llio, don't worry about it. I just didn't want you to feel pressured or anything."

They sit down at the bar, fairly away from the other customers. James doesn't seem to notice, but his right hand is still resting protectively on the small of Lily's back.

"Hey! You!"

James's eyes flutter closed briefly as if in concentration. The man who has come up to him looks to be in his mid-twenties or thirties, and he teeters drunkenly in place, staring them down angrily.

Lily's mouth hangs open slightly. "Erm - "

"Yeah, you sonuva -" the man hiccups. "I saw you buy that girl a beer, you little perdo- "

"Are you talking to me?" James demands.

The stranger advances until he is almost right in their faces, leering madly through crooked yellow teeth. "Don't lie, I weren't planning on telling anyone if you were planning on a -" hiccup "- so…sherdup, I've got a knife…"

He reaches drunkenly for his back pocket, and James stands up, knocking some silverware to the ground with a clatter. The bar has gone silent except the deranged giggles of the stranger.

Those unfocused eyes now slide toward Lily. "Heyyy, don't you know whom I am you little slut…? Yeah…"

James reaches way back somewhere in Australia and cracks him one. The man is down in an instant, blood trickling pitifully from his nose as Lily, frozen and whimpering, is half-dragged away by her companion.

They step out of the bar and into the frosty air again, where Lily releases a frightened sob.

"Oh, my God, I thought that man was for real. I can't believe that just happened -"

"He's just got a screw loose, Llio, you can tell by the way he talks." James pulls Lily into a brief embrace, then steps back and looks her over. "You alright?"

She nods pitifully. "Yeah. Do you suppose he's alright?"

"He'll be fine. We'd better hightail it before he follows us out here."

They hop on the bike and pull out of the parking zone, Lily hastily pulling Sirius's helmet on. She wraps her arms around James's waist and sighs heavily.

"Did you want to go somewhere else?"

"Not really," she replies quietly. "That's too much excitement for one day."

He releases a shuddering breath, then slides one warm hand over hers, rubbing her knuckles gently. "Hey. It was just some drunken creep. Don't worry about it."

"I'm not worried about it. I just want to go home now."

"Okay. I'm sorry it turned out this badly."

James drops her off at her dorm building, graciously taking the helmet from her as she dismounts the motorbike. He looks up at her expectantly. "Stay safe, okay?"

"I'll be safe."

"Are you sure you're alright?"

Her face flushes a little. Honestly, she feels silly for making such a fuss over one little incident. He probably thinks her childish. "I'm fine, James… I promise." And just to lighten the mood, she jokes, "It's not as if it matters to you, right?"

Insert nervous giggle.

James doesn't smile. Her heart sinks as he pulls the helmet on, revs the engine experimentally, and calls, "See you, then!" as he drives away.

Lily lets herself into her room, throws herself onto her bed, and ignores her roommate's pointed look. Nothing. No "Well, I'm glad I didn't completely ruin your day." No "Hey, it does matter to me." Just… "see you".

Her heart seems to be going twice the healthy rate as she contemplates the day. They only talked a little, with the outing cut short. It was a huge disappointment…

Of course, what is she expecting? James isn't interested in a silly girl who met him through his dog. It isn't exactly the most romantic story ever, and she hasn't spent too much time around him, anyway.

_And Sirius doesn't like me,_ she thinks bitterly. Best-friend approval is a necessity, and for some reason she doesn't have it.

Lily releases a heavy sigh and buries her face into her pillow. Elle has stopped badgering her and seems to understand the girlish gravity of the situation, because a small bag of candies is offered from the top bunk. The redhead accepts one with a mumble of gratitude.

They lie there in silence for a while, the only sound being the crinkle of cellophane.

Finally, Elle climbs down from her bunk, gives her roommate a long, long look, and says, "Oh, he'll come around."

It's finally empty.

Lily sits up in bed and reaches into her trunk. She doesn't carry her wand around anymore, which is a bad habit, but the need for it here is minimal.

She sighs again, this time lightly and exasperated, then Apparates.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Eugh, you have no idea how tired I am of posting these early chapters. The plot doesn't start to unfold until chapter 18 (yargh!) so I apologize for the general boring-ness of this story. Bear with me, though.

The handwritten draft is going to be finished at fifty chapters, give or take a couple. There are some chapters I've written that I put a lot of work into polishing, which is why I'm mostly ashamed of this one. Because it reads like I wrote it at midnight.

Oh, and _We All Fall In Love Sometimes_ will be updated very soon. It's a bit more difficult with that one because I don't have a very large backlog of chapters.

Please review. :D It will only take about ten seconds of your life and it'll make me smile all day!


	17. In Which Something Shifts

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter seventeen**

The Leaky Cauldron is just how Lily has always known it – Tom, the barkeep, stands privy, wiping down the greasy counter with an even greasier rag. A few customers sit around eating dinner while some shadier characters have drinks and play cards in the corner.

Lily nods at Tom and goes to the back. A few well-placed taps of her wand earn her entry to Diagon Alley.

As usual, the alley is bustling with life. Loud-mouthed children are dragged past by their impatient mothers; it's evident Hogwarts is a Christmas holiday. The shopping season is running full speed. For once, Lily is glad for the crowd. The anonymity.

Today, Lily wants to disappear.

She strolls down the street at her own pace, considering briefly getting ice cream, then deciding against it. Her health could be better. She stops outside of Eyelop's and peers in the window, looking longingly at the beautiful owls in front: a golden barn owl, a speckled white snowy, a little grey elf owl. They remind her of the good days, when she was young and happy to be part of the magical world, when everything was a novelty to her.

She passes the little tea shop where she and Remus went on their first date and promptly decided they were better off as friends; it is mostly empty now, let go to pieces by an inattentive owner. The paint on the outside is flaking.

Flourish and Blotts has grown even more, a large ad outside boasting the arrival of some new, up-and-coming author. Lily doesn't recognize the name, but judging from the title of his book – "Fourteen Ways to Win a Witch's Affection" – she probably won't ever have to learn his name, either.

Here she decides to go on, part of her unable to resist "that new book smell" and the odd allure of color-changing ink. Useless items like that have always been her favorite.

But Lily doesn't have any Wizarding money – something that shocks her back into a state of practicality. How can she just expect to waltz into a Flourish and Blotts and hand over pound notes?

"I'm sorry, I've got to make a stop at Gringotts," she says, embarrassed, to the seemingly sympathetic merchant.

The trip to the bank is put off until later. Lily doesn't have her safe key, either.

Again, she strolls down Diagon Alley – except in the other direction, as she is considerably less cheerful when she thinks about how much she has been neglecting her magical life.

It's hard to do, balancing between two worlds. Returning to this one for the first time in months has been a harsh reminder to Lily – that problems do exist outside of her little bubble – that in the end, none of this – her Muggle education, her Muggle friends, her Muggle love interest – will matter, because she's coming right back here when it's finished.

In the end, she knows, she'll all but disappear from existence in Britain, for all the world to know as never being born.

In the end, she'll have to choose.

Witch, or Muggle?

Magical, or simply "normal"?

It's like saying, _Lily, or Evans?_ Can the two be separated? She doesn't know. No one's ever told her what she's supposed to do, because honestly, does she even have a choice?

_Did I ever?_

Before leaving, Lily takes this opportunity to send out a few letters to old friends – _hi, how are you doing, university is great, I'll see you soon hopefully._ The fake kind of letters that say everything and mean nothing.

She picks up some chocolate for Remus on the Muggle side of the town and goes home.

--

Lily gets a note in class from one of the other women. A message, she explained, someone had asked her to pass on.

Unfolding it, she is met with a note in jaunty black handwriting.

_LILY,_

_Please meet me at the uni's bookstore after your class is finished, if you're not busy. It's important._

_- JAMES_

She wrinkles her brow, nonplussed. What could he possibly have to talk to her about that was so urgent? Judging by his parting attitude a few days earlier, not much struck this person as important…

Still, she'd be lying if she said she isn't anxious to meet him. When class is dismissed, she fairly bursts out of the building, an hour of built-up curiosity and impatience getting the better of her.

When Lily arrives at the bookstore, she doesn't see him. She looks around in bemusement.

"Over here."

He's behind a stack of legal pads, his favorite cap pulled low over his brow, the way he likes, and his hands stuck in the pockets of his jeans.

"Hi, James," she says almost breathlessly – mainly because she sprinted over here.

"Hullo," he replies wanly. No grin curls at the corners of his mouth like on so many other occasions. His hazel eyes have an odd expression in them. "How… how are you?"

Lily is immediately put on her guard. "I'm fine," she tells him softly, hooking her thumbs in her belt loops. "Is everything alright?"

"Erm… for the most part." Now James makes an attempt to smile, but it emerges as more of a grimace. "You're probably wondering why I asked you to meet me here…"

"A bit, yeah…"

"Well…" he drops off and sighs, tugging on a stray lock of his hair. "See, I'm going out – out of town for the next few days…"

"Oh?" she asks politely, though she's secretly wailing inside. Just when it seems like he is interested in seeing her again, he has to go and say he's taking off! "Where to? Don't you have classes?"

"Oh, places," he says dismissively, averting his eyes. "I've just got to take a few days off… family emergency, you know."

"I'm sorry," Lily replies.

There is a pregnant silence. Both shift their weight awkwardly from foot to foot but don't look at each other.

"Listen," James suddenly says, "I know you're not really dependent on anyone, but if you ever need anything, Sirius will help you out, okay?"

She laughs, trying to lighten the atmosphere. "I don't think Sirius likes me that much, James."

"Hey. Llio." He gives her a half-hearted grin. "Just trust me on this. Sirius will be around if you need him."

"I won't… but it's a nice thought."

"Okay." He gazes at her for a brief moment, steady and with a new, determined hardening about his expression. "I'm going to take off soon. I just wanted to talk to you first."

"I'm glad you did," she says honestly, though she is perplexed at why he's making such a big deal out of it. James leaves all the time – and he always comes back. She's not too worried.

Still, _he_ seems to be, and that makes her wonder just what kind of _family emergency_ he's having.

He reaches out tentatively and brushes his fingertips across her temple, looking at a loss for words. The gentle, tickling sensation almost makes Lily giggle, but for once she keeps her mouth shut and doesn't pull away.

"Don't ever change," he says in a strange, halting tone.

"You act as if you're never coming back," she quips, letting a smile tilt her features. "Have you said good-bye to Sirius as well?"

"Actually, yes," he replies, pushing his hat even lower over his eyes and heading for the door. She follows awkwardly. "He wasn't very impressed, though."

"You're lucky you've got me, then," Lily says, her heart going a mile per minute.

"That I am."

With a whimsical little wave and that broken expression back in his eyes, James hops on Sirius's motorbike – helmet-less – and drives away…

…leaving Lily standing in front of the bookstore, shell-shocked, as it begins to snow.

* * *

**Author's Note:** And this marks the beginning of The Part I Actually Like. The next chapter will have some more Sirius/Lily banter, and the chapter after next will have some characters I haven't touched on yet.

I have to say thank you for those of you who choose to review. I really enjoy getting feedback.

And I would like to address, specifically, a review by _agapi16_: I do realize my speech is quite American-esque... I apologize if this makes the story less enjoyable for you. But since I have to see a confirmed source for Lily's middle name, I'm going to take a little artistic liberty with that, as I'll later do with James's middle name. Little things, really, but since this is an AU it's not going to be canon in many areas. Also, thank you for pointing out that this story is categorized under _Lily Luna_ instead of _Lily Evans_. For some reason all my stories with Lily keep reverting back to that category. I've gone through and fixed most of them, but do tell me if it comes up again. :)

Everyone else: Please review, darlings. :D


	18. In Which The Show Must Go On

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter eighteen**

A week has gone by.

By December 18, just when classes are getting off for a brief winter holiday, Lily is truly worried. She's seen not hide nor hair of James since their meeting in the bookstore, and his words are playing over and over in her mind:

_Don't ever change_.

What does that mean?

It's not as if she spends her days so completely unoccupied that she can worry about underlying meanings all day, but she just – can't – shake the feeling that there is something he isn't telling her, that _there's much more than meets the eye._

"Remus?"

"Hmm?" He looks up from his homework, a crease in his brow. He's so fatigued nowadays that it almost hurts Lily to look at him – tired, frail, a shadow of what he should be.

"If a bloke tells you 'don't ever change', what does he mean by it?"

He exhales slowly and leans back in his seat, taking her in appreciatively. "Well, I'd say it means 'don't ever change', Lee. It's not hard to decipher."

"But _why_ does he say it?" she presses, leaning forward and setting her elbows on his kitchen counter. "Is there some kind of message he's trying to send?"

Remus does take it into consideration, imagining how he'd say it, how he'd feel. "I suppose," he says carefully, "he means that you're a good person the way you are. That you may be different but not to let that sway you, because you're _you_."

She sighs, unsatisfied.

"Can I ask what this is for?"

"Just trying to understand people," Lily replies miserably. She's in his apartment. She talks to his friends. Sometimes she even sees his dog, looking equally lost and confused. It's a pain, because everywhere are reminders of the man who has _so_ puzzled her with just – three words.

_Don't ever change._

Vaguely remembers that he wanted her to go to Sirius if she needed help. But James hadn't told her how to get in touch with his friend, and she isn't sure what she'd day.

"Hello, James said you'd babysit me; please let me pour my feelings out to you so you can answer all my questions?"

_Or_, perhaps – perhaps James suggested she go to Sirius because Sirius has a secret attraction for her, one he wouldn't reveal except to his best friend.

"Eugh, I'm going completely insane!" Lily exclaims, drawing a skeptical look for Remus.

No, it is definitely better this way. She will _not_ be talking to Sirius anytime soon, especially with her imagination running on high gear.

Oddly enough , Remus barely seems to notice his roommate has been missing so long – maybe it's become routine now, these disappearances. Maybe he can settle for feeding the dog and knowing that _eventually_ James will be back.

Maybe, maybe not. Lily doesn't know him much anymore.

Therefore, it is not surprising when Remus says, "Oh, I forgot to tell you – that potion brewer I saw? He was successful."

Just like that. Casually. _Oh, by the way, my life-long disease has been cured. Did you catch yesterday's Quidditch game?_

"That's great!" Lily cries indignantly. "Why on earth didn't you tell me before, you great buffoon?!"

He flinches. "Hey, I _meant_ to. It was very recent. Only managed it last full moon, and now he wants to get a patent before anyone else finds out."

"Oh, and I was kept out of this secret?"

"Sorry?"

She smacks the back of his head lightly, not at all upset as she seems to be. In fact, Lily is elated – this will make his life so much _easier_. "Oh, it's not as if it's one of the biggest advances made in modern potion brewing or anything. Not as if he's cured werewolves."

"Well, it's not exactly a _cure_," Remus explains timidly. "I mean, it _will_ make everything better. I'm able to keep my head during transformations – but I still have to transform."

"It's still a _step_," she emphasizes. "Oh, Remus, I'm so happy for you."

He smiles. "We're getting closer, Lee. And before I never even dared to hope."

She reaches over and gives his shoulders a squeeze, her spirits lifted considerably. All she needs now is for someone to pop through the door and say, "_By the way, Voldemort passed away of sudden heart failure last night. War's over. Want to come celebrate in the streets?"_

They sit there in companionable silence as they have on so many other occasions, each following his or her own train of thought. The sun has already begun to dip into the horizon, like a tired child retreated early to bed.

Beautiful thoughts come to Lily at times like this. It's what makes her want to sit down and just start _writing_ – the drive that made her pursue journalism. But today, instead of her usual ideas, she can hear only one phrase – in one man's voice –

_Don't ever change._

Except how can he expected her not to, when the world is clearly moving on without her?

--

The most important figure in Lily's life has always been her sister.

She's always admired her: that long, thin, frame; those expressive dark eyes; that ability to seize control of any situation and _make it right_. Make it _her own._

They're traits Lily often wishes for herself, and often she finds herself staring in the mirror thinking, _do I ever look like Petunia?_

Before Lily's older sister became bitter and distant, they'd been best of friends. Before magic crossed into her life, they'd been beautiful together, the picturesque Evans girls who liked nothing more than playing tag and spinning on the merry-go-round.

But that was _before_.

_After_ Lily realized who she was – _after_ the differences between them were so heavily accented it was not a compliment but a divider – they'd been alone. Both of them.

And alone, Petunia had no one to chase after in tag. Alone, Lily had nobody to push the merry-go-round.

That's why Lily loves her sister so much – because Petunia was her other half. Petunia _is_ her other half.

Now, she's simply looking for someone to fill that void.

At first, she thought it was Severus. He seemed to be at her side always: someone who listened eagerly to her stories, who stuck with her because he wanted to be there. He _needed_ to be there.

As time passed by, however, he'd been drawn away very much like Petunia, the stark contrast between them becoming the friendship's pitfall.

Then Lily found comfort in Remus, but it is evident now that he hold a completely different meaning for her; he's more than a brother – closer, friendlier – but he doesn't _complete_ her, either. He's just a shade off of her own personality.

Maybe that's why they get along so well. They don't _need_ each other – they want to be friends. They choose to be friends.

Still, it cannot excuse the fact that without Petunia, Lily cannot feel whole.

And without James missing, that wound, which had slowly been closing with years gone by, has been wrenched open and left to fester.

Lily contemplates all this more than what is healthy – just muses from time to time, but it's a very clear and completely picture to her. Maybe she'll never heal. That's okay.

She is sitting in her dormitory alone on Saturday, thinking all this over. Elle is gone for the weekend – leaving her lonely and slightly homesick.

Until now, the realities of her situation hadn't _hit_ her, more like slowly seeped in – but she's alone, alone, _alone_.

Alone, that is, until someone knocks on the door.

_There's a one-in-three chance it's Remus_, Lily decides, so she opens it. But it's not; it's a man, six foot tall, wearing black boot-cut jeans and a striped dress shirt – with the collar upturned and a few buttons undone. It's a man with soft brown hair, grey eyes, a strong nose, and broad shoulders.

It's Sirius Black.

"Hello," he says stiffly, as if rehearsed. "May I come in?"

"I…" Lily blinks and looks around awkwardly. No homework scattered on the desk. No bra slung over the bedpost. "Sure…?"

He steps in, a slight wrinkle in his nose, and seats himself gingerly on her desk chair. She follows him example, settling for the end of her bed.

They stare at each other a moment.

"James asked me to check on you," he informs her, finally.

"Oh." Did he now? "That's kind, but… not really necessary."

"Nothing you need at all? Groceries, cheat sheets, tampons?"

Lily turns slightly pink, but she's touched by the determined set in Sirius's jaw. Despite the sarcasm, he's trying. For James's sake, he's trying. "I'm fine, thank you… would you, er, like something to drink?"

"Anything alcoholic?" he replies almost hopefully.

Lily laughs somewhat awkwardly and goes to her mini-fridge, pulling out a can of soda. "This will have to do."

She tosses it at him, and, brilliantly, Sirius manages to snag it out of the air. He looks far more relaxed as he cracks open his Coke, the dull glint in his eye gone.

"So James is that concerned, huh?" she prompted.

A smile tugged at the corner of those beautiful lips. "Oh, yeah. Extremely so."

"Didn't he think maybe I've been living here with a roommate for months and didn't need anything taken care of?"

"Trust me, I tried to convince him it was useless. He's always been that type, though – he has to be sure. Covers everything himself. '_Sirius,'_" the man whines in a high-pitched voice, "'_Make sure you see her at least once, okay? At least once. At least._' The boy's bloody infatuated."

Lily laughed, but her cheeks were deep pink. "Well, someone needs to tell him to lighten up."

There's a pause in the conversation now as Sirius's eyes trail the room and fall upon a poster tacked to the dorm wall. "The Sex Pistols," he says in surprise.

She leans against the bedpost. "Yeah, they're my favorite band."

"They're mine, too."

"Oh?" Now it's her turn to grin. "Are you the anarchist type? I wouldn't guess from your clothes."

"Just because I don't agree with the government doesn't mean the girls should suffer," he replies solemnly, earning a snort of laughter from the redhead.

"Trust me, we're suffering no matter _what_ you wear."

He ignores this and sips his Coke. "Wow, Lily Evans, who knew we had something in common other than James?"

"It's a small world," she agrees, though it's not that astounding. Many people are fond of the same band. "I'm just a little surprised I haven't met you before at one of their concerts -"

"Okay, no need to be sarcastic." Sirius leans back in his chair and studies her appraisingly. There's another beat of silence as they watch each other. "So, Evans, I'm going to be blunt again."

"Thanks for the caveat."

"It's the only one you're liable to get. Are you interested in James?"

"Am I…" Lily blushes. "What kind of question is that?"

His eyes don't leave her, changing color slightly in the eerie way they are apt to do. She is intrigued, but that can't shake her wariness. "I want you to know that I'm trustworthy. Anything you say to me is completely candid, Evans."

Hands twisting slightly in her lap, she stammers, "I'm just confused as to – er, as to why you would ask that. Merely curiosity, or -"

"Merely curiosity."

"Erm – well – I suppose I might be," she admits, turning a charming shade of pink. A look crosses Sirius's face that can't be placed – perhaps realization along with concern. She isn't sure.

He takes a moment to mull this over, a wrinkle forming in his brow. Then it smoothes out, his expression is wiped clean, and blandly he replies, "Well, thank you for being honest. Many people wouldn't."

_That's why I'm a Gryffindor_, she wants to say, but he wouldn't understand the reference even if she did. So instead she asks, "You aren't going to tell him, right?"

"Not unless you want me to," the man says starkly, and she thinks perhaps he isn't _that_ bad.

"Thank you."

They sit there, plunged into yet another silence, but this time is considerate, even companionable. To Lily, the walls between them have been weakened, if not broken, with this one confession.

"Can I tell you something?"

She looks up.

"In return," Sirius explains.

"Yes," she says.

He kind of half-smiles, the soda can crunched and forgotten in his hands. "I never liked my parents."

"Oh." Lily looks at her feet. "A lot of people don't."

"Yes, but most won't admit why," he says.

She watches him with gentle eyes, and it's like she's seeing him for the first time. The story behind Sirius. A man she barely knows, yet who is so willing to tear down the boundaries that separate them.

What she can't place is _why_.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I think this is my favorite chapter I've published thus far.

Official song for this chapter: _Walk Away_ by Ben Harper. Somewhat applies to the chapter. Unofficial song? _Littlest Things_ by Lily Allen. Has nothing to do with the chapter, but her voice is just so cute. 3

Please review, darlings. 3


	19. In Which There Is A Standoff

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter nineteen**

Marlene McKinnon, twenty-five, hates sitting the night shift. She didn't go through years of intensive medical training to prop herself up and watch a wardful of crazies sleep.

The St. Mungo's Hospital in London is cold and dark. Lights flicker in the hallways and Marlene, scrunching her lime green robes up around her ankles, just sits and shivers.

It's not a good day to be doing the night shift. It's not a good _year_ to be doing the night shift.

The woman sighs in frustrated boredom and reaches for the letter on the desktop, which she's been trying to finish for the past hour. Despite - or perhap because of - her fondness for outdated hairstyles and clothing her parents disapprove of, Marlene is the worst kind of perfectionist.

_Lily_,

_I'm working the graveyard shift here at Mungo's every night this week, and I honestly cannot keep still. I've read two books and all the back issues of _Witch Weekly_ that I own, but between being in a ward full of mental patients and the threat of "Your-Mum-Knows-Who" bursting in at any moment, I think I'M going to go crazy myself!_

_Since you so kindly updated me in your frequent letters (note the sarcasm here), I thought I'd give you a brief outline of what I'm doing here:_

_Over the last month, we've gotten a LOT of spell damage patients in (mostly Aurors... that's not surprising) and we checked in more (not Aurors. No one I know) nine or ten days ago. I think maybe five or six in an hour, though __the injuries are unrelated and they've never met each other in their lives. Anyway, we've been a bit understaffed since Bailey, the head of this floor, disappeared and was replaced by some greenhorn who knows nothing about how to do her job._

_So, to make up for shortages, I'm working OVERTIME to care for these people. And boy, the damage is nasty. Naturally I'm not allowed to say much, but there _were_a couple of Unforgiveable Curses. Not unusual in times like these._

She sighs, picks up a quill, and dips it in her ink bottle.

_Other than that, I'm helping out in the Janus Thickey ward (but we all call it the "Hopeless Cases" ward) and do charm therapy. Stuff like that._

_PLEASE write me back, Lee. I really would like to talk to you, and we need to catch up._

_Love from_

_Marlene_

_P.S. There is something I need to ask you about. Something important that I think you'll be interested in. So let's meet up in person one of these days._

She sighs, and tucks it into her pocket to mail off later. If there's anything she dislikes, it's mailing letters. Writing and receiving them is fine. Mailing is a hassle.

Actually, though she doesn't want to admit, Marlene dislikes most things: along with working the night shift and mailing letters, she has zero tolerance for Death Eaters, dresses, and Sirius Black among other things.

There's a light tapping behind her, and Marlene jumps; turning to the open door, she sees yet _another_ thing she doesn't like.

"Knock, knock," says Gideon Prewett cheerfully, leaning against the frame. "I came to check upon you."

She scowls and stands, languidly making her way over. "You do realize it's two in the morning, Prewett."

"Yes," he replies, "and at this very hour you've got a patient out of bed. Potter, in fact. I thought you'd like to know."

Marlene's eyes widen slightly. "Him _again_ -?"

"Yes, him again." The blond-haired man watches her almost anxiously, that grin of his still plastered on his face, just faltering in sincerity. "Marly, I don't know about the honesty of this fellow. Maybe we should talk to -"

"Nonsense," she interrupts, rolling her eyes. "If no one else - _important_- is worried about it, we shouldn't be worried about it. He's just a kid, really. And don't call me Marly," she adds, for good measure.

"How sweet of you," he says dryly. "He's in the spell damage ward, just walking around. Maybe you ought to give something to knock him out."

"Prewett, he _just_ came out of a mission. Sure, he may not be dedicated, but there's no need to be cruel."

Gideon lets all facade slide no. Underneath the mix of smiles and sarcasm the twenty-four year-old is worried and even slightly protective. "He's friends with _Black_."

"Who _also_ just got out of a mission."

"Not guarantees of a person's goodness," he insists.

"You were in the same mission, weren't you? Did they back you up?" She crosses her arms and gives him the trademark Marlene expression, the kind with the raised eyebrows and a flattened mouth that says, _Are you really going to try that on me?_ And she adds, "Besides, Fabian rather enjoys Potter."

Before Gideon can respond, however, she presses something into his hand. He looks down, surprised.

"I've got to get him then. But will you mail that for me?"

"You're completely changing the subject."

"Yes. How good of you to notice."

Gideon sighs, but accepts the letter. "So, what is it?"

"It's a letter to a friend of mine," the woman explains, looking more serious. "Gid - I think I've found someone else for the Order."

--

Remus is sitting in his room, working on homework. Without a Muggle education as background, it's all he can do to manage his maths work - to be honest, most of his answers are filched from female classmates who are all-too-willing to share.

Later he will remember signing his name on a work packet and stuffing it into his bag before counting the number of pages he has left to write in his English essay. Eleven, to be exact. He remembers this because just as he concludes, _eleven_, there is a loud knock on the door.

Remus gets up and makes a futile effort to clean the place up a little - kicking piles of clothes into his room and shutting the door, hastily brushing dust off the kitchen counter as he passes it - before opening the door.

In tumbles James, blinking and half-supported by a harassed-looking man. He is seated at the kitchen table before Remus can muster up the words w_here've you been_ and _what happened to your arm_.

"I've just been out," James explains, trying unsuccessfully to balance his left arm, which is wrapped awkwardly in a sling, on the table. "I got in an accident, that's all."

"But you're in horrible shape," his roommate points out. "Who gave you the shiner?"

Other than the arm, James's torso is bandaged, and he looks deeply fatigued. "No one," the man insists, though they both know it's not true. "I just pulled something in my arm and broke some ribs, but it's really nothing to worry about."

Remus wisely doesn't enquire as to where he'd been - or even why he'd been gone so long - again.

"I had to half carry him back," the man in the corner says quietly. He glances at Remus. "We've just come from St. Mungo's. James told me you're magic."

"That's right," Remus replies cautiously. "Thank you for bringing him back, I suppose. Is there anything I can know?"

"It's not a big deal," the injured student cuts in tritely. "I really don't appreciate being talked about like I'm not here."

"He should be fine. Just a little spell damage, that's all," explains the stranger.

"Shut up, Sirius."

Remus's eyes widen very slight. "Sirius...?" he repeats.

"Oh," James says, looking between the two. "Remus, this is Sirius Black. Sirius -"

There is a strange eruption of noise as both men suddenly reach into their pockets and draw their wands. In a few seconds, they are at a standstill, weapons pointed at each other's throats.

James is frozen - startled, confused, and slightly frightened.

The expression on the werewolf's face is a new one, twisted with disgust and fright. "Get out of here," he snarls.

Sirius looks deadly intense as well. He means business. "Put down your wand, Remus. I don't want any trouble."

"You're just asking for it."

"C'mon, old fella," the second man says. "Put it down, and we'll talk this out."

"Five years," Remus says quietly, a sense of urgency in his tone. His hand shakes slightly. "Five years, Black."

"Five years, yes, I _know_ - you think I'm not living with the same damn _guilt_? You have every right to hate me, Remus, but don't -"

"Don't talk to me like that."

"_Don't_ threaten me."

Their gazes, cold and unforgiving, lock, like two carnivores at a stalemate over a subject of prey, and James is forgotten as they both find themselves facing demons they thought were long buried.

* * *

**Author's Note:** So much plot. My brain is dead right now just from typing this.

So now you know what James has been up to - but what on earth is going on with Sirius and Remus? In the next chapter: the reasoning behind the conflict between our two favorite boys; a corny line or two; and a reunion. Alas! It's all moving so quickly now for my taste...

I notice there's some problems going on with my formatting, such as the lack of spacing between major scene changes when it needs to be there. If you notice a really abrupt change in the flow of the story and think it's incorrectly formatted, please let me know... I'm trying to go through and mark them with dashes now to eliminate the problem, but we'll see how that turns out.

Until next time. Please review, lovelies! (P.S. And _WAFILS_ will be updated tomorrow, since I have to go to sleep now. Yargh. Only eleven hours and twenty minutes until my history test!)


	20. In Which A Heart Beats Faster

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter twenty**

The two men face off, frozen with wands drawn in the tiny kitchen of the student apartment. The only sound is the frantic breathing of Sirius and Remus, who have yet to break eye contact.

"What the hell is going on here?" James demands. "How do you know each other?" He is ignored.

"It was the full moon not long ago," Remus tells his opponent bitterly, a strangled kind of madness in his voice. "There's been advances. Ways to keep me subdued. All I've been able to think is 'what if someone had thought of that earlier? Would this ever have happened?'"

"I told you, Remus, and I'll tell you again." The other man looks torn, the expressions of anger and remorse battling it out in his eyes. "I didn't know. I didn't know what was in there."

"So? You think apologizing has helped me get over the fact that I could've killed an innocent kid? Or my best friend? Dumbledore _explained_ to you I couldn't control myself. And on top of that, now I have to go through life knowing that someone knows -" Remus halts and growls in frustration in anger. "…someone knows that dark nature. Someone knows how I really am."

"Stop being melodramatic," Sirius spits. "It's been a long enough time, and I'm living with the same weight on my shoulders, okay? I came really close to ruining _two_ lives because of my stupidity, but you _don't_ see me crying my eyes out over it."

"Get out of here."

"What the _hell_ is going on?" James says again. No one wants to make eye contact with him, let alone answer his question. Sirius gives an angry sigh.

"I didn't know you were under that tree. I didn't know. That's the best I can do." He tucks his wand into his back pocket, averting his eyes.

"Often the best isn't as good as the worst is bad," Remus replies, still angry.

Sirius looks at him tiredly and an almost mad grin curls at the corner of his mouth. "Are you going to curse me, Remus? _Avada Kedavra_? I've always wondered what that would feel like."

Remus lowers his wand shakily, but he doesn't pocket it. The silence is tense.

"I'm surprised we met tonight," Sirius says.

"Yes, well, it's not exactly a pleasant surprise."

"Sirius, Remus," the third man cuts in _again_, "please tell me _what you two are on about_!"

There's a beat of silence.

"This _friend_ of yours," Remus finally bites out, "tricked a thirteen year-old kid at Hogwarts into crawling under the Whomping Willow. I take it you remember that tree."

"Yeah," James answers, nonplussed, "it was planted in my second year. What has that got to do with you?"

"It has everything to do with him," Sirius says impatiently, unable to take the suspense. "He was under that tree because he's a goddamn werewolf."

The steely set in Remus's eyes, grimly determined, doesn't falter as his roommate's face drains of all color. He's used to this by now. It's defined his life, set his standards, and he can't blame poor James for being frightened.

"You're a - a -"

Sirius only has a particle of pity for Remus, but it's safe to say he now understands. As for his best friend, matters are a little different.

James gets up, grabs his hat and pulls it on, skittishly dancing around Remus to head for the door - or, at least, it might be dancing if it were not for the pathetic slump of his still-not-completely-healed torso. He opens the door with his uninjured arm and says quickly, "I - well - I hope you understand," and bolts.

There's a lot more silence, thick and tense.

For a minute, neither of the remaining young men break it, both still overwhelmed by the day's turn of events. Finally Remus slides back into his chair, releasing a shaky, bitter laugh as he does so.

Sirius follows suit, saying, "He'll be back in no time."

"Oh yeah? How do you know?"

"He doesn't hold grudges. It's not in his nature."

"It's in mine," Remus says almost cruelly. There's nothing holding him back now.

Sirius watches him critically. "I don't think it is. You're a lot like him."

Another short bite of laughter.

This time Sirius laughs along with him, a throaty, rich chuckle that doesn't match his attitude at all. "You know, he never told me you were his roommate. I only recognized you after I heard your name."

"Likewise."

"And even if he doesn't come back, does it matter much? I've been telling him for ages to get back to the magical world."

"He pays half the rent," Remus explains lamely, though this isn't an issue at all. If he was truly worried about rent, he'd ask Lily to move in. But, as much as the man doesn't like to admit it, he has come to favor James as a friend and constant presence in his life.

"I could've gotten worse roommates," he tries again. Sirius seems to understand the sentiment and nods, thinking about his own period of living with James.

"I wish he hadn't found out this way."

Sirius shakes his head. "All things realize themselves at some time or another, Remus. Secrets get revealed. People reunite. People die."

Remus glares at him. "Secrets like this aren't meant to be revealed and honestly, it seems like you're doing a damn enthusiastic job trying to make _all three_ happen. What are you, God?"

"I apologized. You can't expect me to do it again."

Remus actually laughs at that, because not once did Sirius ever say he was sorry.

--

"You're back."

Those words stop James in his tracks. Just two words, but as he pauses on his way out of the math building and she stands there stock-still at the top of the stairs, those two words bring a lot rushing back.

Mostly his conversation with her before leaving.

He didn't expect to come back. He isn't even sure if he wanted to come back, if he wanted to take the easy way out and _die_. And he said all those things - bared his soul - with the idea that it was his only chance, ever.

A blush rises up in poor James's cheeks, and he turns around slowly.

"Yeah."

"You were gone a long time," Lily says simply, thinking of his warm fingertips sliding over her cheekbone, and those words, _Don't ever change._ It's driving her mad. What does it mean?

At the same time, James is dreaming of her light smile, the one that made him think, if just for one second, that she was pleased with him.

Those blushes.

Those smiles.

Those furtive glances.

The fuel on which their hope runs, the carrot which the mule chases. The reward in an inevitable future.

Without further ado, Lily takes the steps two at a time to envelop him in a long-needed hug. Both are beyond relieved that there is no grudge kept, no injury mentioned, no explaining to do. She takes in his bandages and the obvious sling after a moment but kindly opts not to comment.

"I think a lot of people missed you," she says, pulling away with an embarrassed expression on her face. "I mean - your friends. I did. Blackie did."

"Pfft, that mutt hates me," he jokes. "You, however… well, you I could deal with."

The blush on Lily's cheeks deepens.

"Can I ask why you were gone? I mean, I know it was a family emergency, but -"

He averts his eyes. He doesn't want to lie. Not to her. Not anymore. Mistakes from his past have taught him well.

Finally he replies softly, "Maybe it's best we not talk about it."

And Lily, bless her, merely nods. She won't push the subject.

Students mill around them on the landing, going about their lives as if nothing has happened. But the two - looking everywhere now but at each other - feel a change in the atmosphere; like the merest change in temperature or tiniest bit of saturation Lily and James have felt something change -

- permanently -

- in their friendship.

Neither seems to want to move, but Lily finally does, heading toward the door. James sidles after her, confused.

"It's a pretty day," she comments. "Hardly any snow at all."

He nods.

The sound of professors and rowdy students still drifts from inside.

"Yet I can feel winter in the air. It just sort of happens that way. I wake up, and winter is there, just there."

"I think I know what you mean," he says, focused more on her than on her ramblings. The chill air hits them like a fresh drink of water, and James greedily sucks it in.

"God, it's been too long," he says, finding a bench and taking it. She follows suit, looking at him strangely.

Lily's eyes flutter closed for a moment and she realizes they're on _that_ bench. "Too long?" she echoes.

"Too long," James agrees, finally heaving a sigh. "Since I've really had fresh air. I've been cooped up for the past week, and I didn't get to go anywhere at all. Couldn't even leave my bed."

She glances at him. "Your..."

"Broken ribs, nothing big. It's had time to heal."

"You know," Lily comments, "where I went to school, there were big, open grounds. Lots of trees, animals… it was wonderful."

He smiles. "Mine was kind of the same way. You might've found it scary, though."

She laughs - nothing could be more frightening than navigating the depths of the Dark Forest at night, trying to serve detention with Hagrid. "I somehow doubt that, James."

"Well - you'd be surprised. There were a lot of - well, people said the school was haunted, you know, by ghosts - and there were - were - horses," he finished lamely. He had been aiming to summarize the terrors of the Wizarding world, but how does one explain banshees and redcaps and ghouls to a Muggle?

Lily, however, is quite amused by this. "Horses?" she laughs. "How on earth can you be afraid of horses?"

"There are _really_ creepy horses out there!" James cries defensively.

"Okay, I actually agree," she concedes. The memory of a Hogwarts thestral appears in her mind. "But _still_…"

"I just don't like hoofed animals," he says, leaning back with a yawn. He suddenly feels extremely fatigued. "Except deer. They're alright. Other animals are like deer's competition…"

She touches his arm briefly as his eyelids flutter. "James? You look really exhausted. Maybe you'd better go back to your flat."

"Did Sirius check up on you like I asked?" he murmurs, apparently ignoring her.

"Yes, but -"

"It's alright, Llio." He gives a long sigh, then drags himself to sit up again. He rubs his temples, staring at the ground. "I just haven't slept in a few days, that's all."

Her brow furrows. "A few days? James, that's _really_ unhealthy."

He gives her a pained glance. "I'm _not_ going back to the flat right now."

"Well, do you want to stop by my dorm? It's a lot closer."

James mutters in small agreement - after all, he _is_ drained of energy. It is a surprise he isn't asleep right now - and allows himself to be pulled by the arm, off the bench and toward the student housing buildings. It will be a long walk…

* * *

**Author's Note:** "Come into my kitchen," said the spider to the fly...

James has extremely poor judgment when he is sleepy, which oddly enough will come back later in the story. And so will the words exchanged between Remus and Sirius! Now you know what happened... but what does that mean for everyone else? It's definitely (not) in the next chapter, _In Which Lily Walks_, because something much more important is in there: a decision.

Please review.

P.S. The handwritten draft of _ANBTT_ is **finished**! Yay! It is forty-seven chapters long. I feel like I finally gave birth after a really long, annoying pregnancy (not that I would know that feeling - but it did take me nine months to write this)...


	21. In Which Lily Walks

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter twenty-one**

James snoozes away on Lily's bunk, oblivious to the world. At first he'd been awkward about it, saying that it might look rather odd; but after she pointed out that her roommate, also wont to come and go at odd times, was asleep in _her_ bunk, it didn't take much to prompt him into getting some rest.

He looks horribly uncomfortable there, his ribs broken and his arm in an unidentified state, so Lily, thoughts running along the lines of _shoot, shoot, shoot, if he wakes up I could get arrested, shoot_, pulls out her wand and runs it over the injuries, saying a few spells to speed up the healing process.

Skittishly she tucks the wand away, and now takes a seat at her desk (where Sirius had sat only a few days before - straight after his confession he'd had to go, leaving Lily more disconcerted than ever). She pulls a pad of writing paper toward her; there is a letter to be written which, admittedly, should've been written days ago.

_Marly,_

_I'm terribly sorry for not getting back to you. Things at Cardiff are a bit chaotic of late. Judging by the tone of your letter, whatever needs to be said can't be said through an owl, so tell me when you are free to meet up. Please don't tell me where._

_Your friend_

_Lily_

Quickly Lily seals the paper into an envelope and sticks a charm to it. She doesn't have an owl anymore, so the old method of sending notes in school - not exactly favorable for long-distance travel - will have to do.

"To Marlene," she whispers lightly. "And may you burn up for anyone but Marlene." The note folds and flutters out the window, and she sighs. It is unlikely to make it, but perhaps it will look like litter, carried by the wind…

Strangely, not ten minutes later an owl lands on her windowsill, silent. Shocked, Lily inches the sill up, and the bird drops a slip of paper without so much as a clack of his beak.

"Smart bird," Lily murmurs affectionately as she recognizes it. So Marlene is close by, definitely in Wales - otherwise her response time would be much longer.

She opens the note.

_Lily Evans, you are a FOOL! You should know better than to send messages by charm. They are subject to the elements and furthermore to TAMPERING._

_Don't bother about codes, I'm at the college right now. In the bookstore. Come outside._

_- Marlene_

Lily thinks wildly, _Marlene is outside?_ Here, now… she casts a glance at James, who is curled up under the covers like a child.

She has to go, of course. Obviously, whatever her friend wants to talk about is extremely important - otherwise why would she come all the way out to Cardiff?

Lily sighs, and, hoping Elle doesn't wake up while she is out, exits the dorm.

It's a quick jog down to the bookstore (Lily is suddenly grateful for the proximity) and Marlene is waiting there, looking every bit as, well, _Marlene_ as she did before.

"Lee," the woman says, pulling her into a brief embrace. "You look well."

"You look…odd," the redhead replies hesitantly, looking up and down at her friend's bright green robes. As one can expect, the others in the store give the pair funny looks.

"Yeah, well - I had to come straight from work." Marlene casts an eye around the store, then grabs Lily's elbow and moves her behind a tall display case. "This'll have to do. Albus will kill me…"

She casts a quick Muffliato charm, pocketing her wand as casually as if she did magic in front of Muggles every day. She probably did. Like Lily, she wasn't averse to testing the Statute of Secrecy.

"What is it?" Lily asks, biting her lip. Marlene raises an eyebrow.

"Bit anxious, are we? Got a boy waiting on you?"

"_No_," she exclaims immediately, before remember that technically, yes, she does.

A smile appears on the brunette's face. "Lee… I hope you haven't become too attached to the Muggle world."

"What?"

"I mean… what if there was something more? Something that counted more than going to college?"

Lily frowns. "Marly, what are you on about?"

"What if," Marlene says, so enraptured by her own speech that her eyes are shining and she forgets to scold her friend for the nickname. "What if there was a resistance? To You-Know-Who? Surely you've been following the news."

Lily's eyes drop to the ground. Oh, she'd been following. It was hard _not_ to, really, as if she'd stuck a toe in and now she couldn't help but test the waters again every now and then. "Kudos to the resistance, then."

"Suppose it needed more people? Suppose you were asked to join?"

"I wouldn't be asked."

"Suppose I was asking you to join?" Their eyes meet again, and Lily is struck by the horrible message Marlene is trying to convey. Out of her friend's softly tilting mouth comes the question: "Would you leave this world behind?"

Lily pauses, then shakes her head. "I can never leave," she murmurs. "I'm just as tied to it as I am to the Wizarding world."

Marlene leans back, a mild expression of surprise on her face. "That's all?"

The girl bites her lip again. Truth be told, a resistance is probably _exactly_ what Wizarding Britain needs right now.

Then it occurs to her - what had she said? _Albus will kill me._ Marlene was sent by Dumbledore - then - _"He said if there's every a way, he'll contact you."_

So this is it - her calling. The chance she wanted, the one for which she spent hours pleading with Remus to get him to talk to Dumbledore.

That was only a few weeks ago, although it feels much longer. So much has _happened_.

Does she still want the chance?

"Lee?"

No. Not if it means leaving the Muggle world: leaving Cardiff, her mother, James…

"Lee?""

She snaps out of her reverie, gazing back steadily at a disconcerted Marlene. "Yes?"

"Are you really going to say 'no' and leave it at that?" the woman says quietly. "People are _dying_, Lee. And now you have a chance to do something about it."

Lily's heart reaches out, it truly does, but she still can't ignore what she's being asked to do: sacrifice her life. "What if I don't want to?" she blurts.

More surprise. "The Lily Evans I knew would."

She's conflicted. _I've talked the talk, now I have to walk the walk,_ she thinks wildly. But what if something happens to her? Her mother will be devastated - two family deaths in three years? And Remus won't have anyone else -

But it seems wrong somehow, saying no. After all, it is Muggles this "resistance" protects - people like James and Sirius. People like Elle Goldeir. She'd be protecting them.

Marlene gives an agitated sigh as her wristwatch begins to beep. "Damnit, I've got to go. Gid needs me. Listen, Lily, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to -" She waves a hand vaguely.

"No need to Obliviate me, Marly," Lily answers her, feeling a sudden wave of confidence. _Now or never_, she thinks. "What if - what if it was part-time, you know -"

There is a pause as the watch goes on beeping insistently. "Of course," the other woman finally says softly. "Of course. We'll accept anything. But, Lil -"

_Beep! Beep! Beep!_

"It's a long run before I can Apparate," Marlene says hurriedly, "so I've got to go - but just remember that - shoot - remember you can't always have both, okay?"

"Okay?" Lily tries to answer, but her friend probably doesn't catch it, because she's already halfway out the door.

"Odd girl," the store clerk mutters as Lily, too, passes.

--

James is waiting outside of her dormitory.

"I woke up and you weren't there," he accuses gently as soon as he sees her, "and your roommate was looking at me. Said something like it was about time I got some sleep, so I just sort of…ran away," he finished lamely.

Lily laughs, though her mind is still turning the recent events over in her mind. "Elle's… observant," she says. "I promise she wasn't stalking you."

He looks unconvinced, but merely shrugs and rumples his hair. "It was weird anyway. Where'd you go?"

"I just had to run some errands," she lies. "It was kind of an emergency - you know, girl stuff."

He nods, and there's a beeping sound.

"Wow," he says while he checks hi watch. "It's almost six o' clock. I should have been back awhile ago."

James shifts his weight form foot to foot, and looks at Lily, who moves closer because frankly, talking from a distance seems awkward somehow. "Well - thank you. I suppose."

She nods. "I'll see you soon. And -" she touches his arm, which he has hastily rewrapped in the sling. "Take care of that, okay?"

He smiles. "You know I will, Llio."

"Of course."

He starts to walk away, clutching his hat in one hand, but hesitates and turns back. "Hey, Llio?"

She grins at him and raises an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Did Sirius _really_ check up on you?"

"Yeah, he really did," she laughs.

This provokes a small snort from James, and he shakes his head while putting his cap on. "What'd you talk about?"

"The Sex Pistols," she answers truthfully.

He shakes his head some more, mutters, "_Wow_," and turns back. "See you, Lily."

And unlike the day of the failed "date" (as Lily secretly thinks of it), the day of the motorcycle, this _see you_ seems pleasant. As if he really _does_ mean he will see her.

Lily shakes herself out of her thoughts. It is a moot point, really - James is a Muggle, and she is a witch. Thanks to Dumbledore, she now has dangerous ties into another world, a world she can't - and won't - involve anyone else in.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Arghh...

It's probably a bad sign that I hate writing interaction between the two main characters. . I want to update faster right now, but I've got a killer headache - so I can barely read my notebook, let alone stare at the computer. So this will be it for the day.

I can't wait for chapters twenty-two and twenty-three! Motivate me! (Chapter 22: Marlene is suspicious, Gideon is pitiful, and a little more of Sirius's past is revealed: _In Which There is an Ironic Twist.)_

Don't forget to review, my lovely readers. :D


	22. In Which There Is An Ironic Twist

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter twenty-two**

James hates St. Mungo's.

It isn't the rude Welcome Witch, or the odd smell (which, despite efforts, won't go away), or even passing the "hopeless cases" ward, as Marlene calls it. He does detest the Welcome Witch, and the smell makes him gag, of course, and no one likes seeing crazies live out their lives that way…

…but…he just doesn't like _being_ there. Because being there means he's been injured in a fight, and if he has, then the war is still going on.

James _hates_ those reminders.

He sits up on a paper-covered table in Spell Damage as Marlene examines his arm. It's been fine since the first day he was here, of course, but she kept him for observation anyway, and insisted on this check-up appointment. Similarly, the damage on his torso has faded away.

"Did you ever go into med training?" Marlene asks suspiciously, rolling his sleeve back down.

"Erm, no." He averts his eyes, somehow quite irritated by this stern Healer. True, they're both part of a secret society, but it's no secret that most of the older members don't like him.

"Black?"

"Shouldn't you know?" he challenges. She briefly takes on an expression of indignation before composing herself.

Coolly, Marlene pulls off her gloves and sits back in her chair, giving James an appraising look. She doesn't respond.

He crosses his arms. "Why do you ask?"

"Because your healing process was pretty speedy," she tells him brusquely, "and if you haven't gone to even one session of med training you shouldn't be performing those charms on yourself."

James cocks an eyebrow. "What charms?"

"The charms you – oh, never mind." She gets up, waving a hand at him. "I suppose it's at your own risk, not mine. You're dismissed."

He just hops off the table and makes for the door. "Hey, McKinnon," he throws over his shoulder, "When's the next -"

"Check the time," she snaps, cutting him off. "Hurry out. I have another patient after you."

James rolls his eyes and lets himself out of the office, thinking it's probably _his_ fault Order member don't like him anyway.

--

"And you scold me for being cruel," Gideon scoffs, emerging from the corner. His eyes are bright with merriment.

"Shut it, Prewett," she mutters, glaring at the floor as he seats himself gingerly on the edge of the table. He gives her a wry smile.

"Back to that, are we?"

Marlene's brows shoot up, and she looks at him skeptically. "I wasn't aware we were ever _off_ of that, actually."

"_Gid, I found someone for the Order_," he coos in a high-pitched voice. "_Gid, why do you keep calling me when it's not an emergency? Gid, you rat-arsed berk, get your hands off -_"

"Alright, alright," Marlene interrupts loudly, her cheeks pink. "I get it. Now won't you leave? I do have things to do, you know."

Gideon's eyes widen in mock innocence. "But I'm your next patient. Aren't you going to examine me?"

"No."

He sticks out his tongue and climbs off the table, shaking his yellow hair out of his eyes. "Thanks a lot, Healer McKinnon. I feel a lot better already."

"Well, you should," she breathes, trying to ignore his proximity. "But I _do_ have a lot of other patients on the book today. Sirius Black, for one -"

He makes a noise of disgust and moves away. Marlene's heart gives little _thud_, but she pushes it down, determined to ignore it.

"That Black," he says frustratedly, "is a terrible creature. I don't know why you waste your time on him."

"We're just friends, Gid," she replies irately, though she _did_ provoke him. She crosses her arms.

He leans against the door, eyes dark with jealousy. "Just friends, huh? Just _really_ good friends -"

She rolls her eyes; this discussion has become routine for them, and frankly she's bored of it. "You need to leave," she tells him bluntly, tugging him away from the door. He shakes her off and lets himself out, stopping in the doorway to look at her.

"I love you, Marly," he tells her. "You know that."

"Yeah, I know," she says, a lump forming in her throat. "Bye."

--

Sirius Black paces outside the building. Every so often he glances up at it – the worn grey bricks, the uniform windows, the all-around cheerlessness of the building. The only thing not grey – amidst grey building, grey sky, grey snow – is a set of scraggily Christmas lights.

To go in, or not to go in?

It's not as if he's afraid – he knows now, knows more surely than he has known anything. But the implication of it all – this can change _everything_ for James.

Or maybe it can't.

The only way to find out, Sirius decides, is to progress; so he does go in the building, opening the door and going up a flight or two of stairs before he stops outside the correct grey door.

He knocks.

When she opens the door, it seems to brighten. She's smiling, albeit tiredly, and her red hair makes him forget all about the grey.

"Hey, Sirius," she says, nonplussed. "What's the occasion?"

"Quite a few ways to phrase it," he replies honestly. "May I come in?"

She steps back to let him through, and shuts the door.

"Make the door Imperturbable."

Lily's jaw falls open. "How do you- ?"

"Just do it, I'll explain."

Quickly she pulls her wand out of her trunk and casts a charm on the door so no one can listen in, then turns to Sirius, feeling as if she'd just committed an unspeakable act. "What is this all about? And how do you know about…"

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it?" When she doesn't answer, he sighs and sits on her bunk, extracting his own wand from his back pocket.

Lily's eyes go wide. "Oh, my _God_, you're a -"

"Yeah." He replaces it and folds his hands in his lap. James won't be happy, but – well, these are Sirius's secrets, not his, and in any case once James returns he will have to learn what Sirius has learned.

She's shaking her head, overwhelmed. "I had no idea. You pull off the Muggle look fantastically. I just -" She seems to be at a loss for words.

Sirius sweeps his hair out of his eyes and gazes back at her a she shakily sits in the desk chair. "Well, you're very convincing, too. I had no idea until I ran into Remus a few days ago."

"You know -"

"I was in your year at Hogwarts," he replies, exasperated. "I knew both of you. Granted, I remember him a lot better -" he winces at this. Perhaps it is better not to explain _how_, exactly, he knows Remus "- but I'm surprised you don't remember me."

"I didn't talk to very many people at school," Lily replies meekly.

Sirius sighs, not wanting at all to bring this into the conversation – it's unnecessary history, and the last thing she needs right now is another surprise. But he has to say _something_. He reaches forward and grabs her hand gently. "You've hated me for a long time, Lily. Third year."

She doesn't respond for a moment.

Honestly, she doesn't have any memories of Sirius. She'd probably never met him. But the way he says, _Third year_ brings back something else, something more poignant than an odd name or handsome face.

_There was an accident, you see, involving a really nasty prank someone played on him, and I saved his life._

"Oh, my God," she says.

_I only wish I knew who did it. I would've beat seven shades of shit out of him._

"Lily -"

"Oh, my _God_," she says again, closing her eyes. She feels lightheaded, but the sensation is offset by years of anger bubbling to the surface. "You _did_ that."

He looks down, unsure of what to expect. Guilt and shame rise up in his throat like sour bile. "Yeah. I tricked Snape into going under the tree."

Her heart is beating furiously. Sev – he could've _died_, or worse – and Remus –

"How can you say that?" she demands, voice rising in pitch as she stands up, tugs at her hair. "How can you sit there and say that so casually?"

He stands, too, and they are nose to nose in the small bedroom. "I'm only telling you because you deserve to know. You deserve to know that."

"What, know that I'm standing in my dorm with an attempted murderer?" she cries. "What kind of cruel bastard would do that to them?"

"I was a messed-up kid, Lily!" he snaps. "I was only thirteen and I was a twisted, _sick_ product of my parents' politics -"

"I don't care! Not even the most screwed-up kid in the world sends someone to their deaths or – or to lifelong torture with _that disease_." She focuses on him now, tears of anger just barely welling up. It's been no secret to her how very much Remus suffers not only during his transformation but from the social stigma surrounding lycanthropy.

Sirius is quiet, and Lily is out of things to say, and for a minute there is nothing but the sound of their soft breathing.

"I mean," she finishes softly, voice cracking, "Remus was almost destroyed over it when he found out."

He nods – he knows. "Remus and I talked."

She bites her lip, and Sirius senses that the worst is over – she's calmer now. She'll think now.

"He said you… didn't know about it, then." He twists his fingers, wrings his hands. "How could you do what you did – save Snape - and not know?"

Lily sits back down now, looking exhausted. He sits too. "Dumbledore simply… never told me. I only stopped Severus because – well, it was the _Whomping Willow_. That's dangerous in itself. So of course when I saw him trying to get near it I stopped him."

Sirius makes a _hm_ noise, and she adds, "I was out after hours, I know. I was docked fifty points by McGonagall."

"I was in Gryffindor too."

"But they told you. Why would they tell you?"

"That's a good question," he says. His watch beeps.

Sirius glances down at it, expression a mix of surprise and worry. "Shit, I've got to go," he blurts, thinking he really hasn't said what he came here to say. But it's too late – he can't unload that kind of information on her now, not in the middle of _this_ turmoil.

Lily stands as he stands, unsatisfied. "But I have so many question." _So many things to say_, they're both thinking.

"It's going to have to wait. Do you mind- ?"

"No, go ahead and Disapparate," she concedes with more than a little frustration. She can't hold him up now, judging by the haste in his voice. "No one's going to notice, just go."

He does, not saying goodbye. But that's just how Sirius is.

Lily, feeling weak from all the thoughts and questions spinning in her head, slumps back on her bunk, closing her eyes. The day has been far too long, and she has learned far too much, but there is one, single conclusion which, oddly, stands out to her.

If Sirius is visiting, James is gone.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This isn't really up to snuff, but I'm going to post it anyways. =/

Not much to say here. Please review.


	23. In Which The Inevitable Occurs

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter twenty-three**

Lily tracks down Remus the next day. She has no qualms going to his flat as it's apparent James won't be present. She knocks harshly on the door, calling, "Remus! _Remus J. Lupin_!"

And the door swings open mid-knock as a disconcerted Remus, his hair a damp brown spike and a towel drawn securely around his waist, says, "There's no need to shout."

"Yes, there _is_," she says angrily, not bothering to wait for an invitation inside. She pushes past him and he watches her go, incredulous.

"Lee, what is this all about?" he wants to know.

She sits in his kitchen and looks at him with raised eyebrows.

"I'll get dressed," Remus conceded, retreating to the bathroom. A few minutes later, he appears – fully-clothed, hair magically dried – saying, "_Where_ is that dog?"

Blackie is already waiting by the door, whining plaintively as if he knows what's to come and wants to be out of the storm. More than willing to oblige, the man lets him out, irritated by the reminder that his roommate has yet to return…

Once back in the kitchen Remus lock eyes with Lily, gives an exhausted sigh, and says, "So… to what do I owe this honor?"

"To what?" she repeats. "How about, why didn't you tell me about Sirius?"

There is a shuddering halt in Remus's breathing. He stares at her. Lily waits.

"Don't play dumb," she says. She crosses her arms. "He told me everything."

The color drains from his face. "He – he told you what I said?"

Lily bites her lip, feeling suddenly sorry for her friend. He looks just as surprised as she feels. But she can't shake the knowledge that he'd _known_ – he'd known and he'd never told her.

"How do you know Sirius Black, anyway?" he asks, taking her silence for an affirmative. He leans his shoulder on the wall, tired, and with a pang Lily realizes the full moon is approaching.

"I – well – school, of course," she says, annoyed. She doesn't have the heart to deal with formalities – she just wants him to talk, tell her why he didn't say something, give her a good explanation and then hug her like everything will be better.

Remus looks mildly surprised. "But you didn't ever talk to him, Lee -"

"Oh, for God's sake, Remus," she snaps, voice trembling, "you wouldn't know who I _have_ and _haven't_ talked to! And why don't you call me _Lily_ for once? That's my name, isn't it?!"

There is a strangled silence as Lily, terrified by her outburst, starts to cry.

Remus immediately moves to her side and wraps his arms around her; she turns her face into his shoulder, days of emotional turmoil rising to the surface as her sniffles turn into tears, and her tears into wracking sobs.

"Oh, _Remus_!" she cries, throwing her arms around his neck as he pets her hair, croons in her ear. "Everything is just gone _wrong_!"

"What's gone wrong?" he asks, pulling away to look at her tear-stained face.

"_Everything_," she blurts, feeling ashamedly like a little girl. "I never thought I'd have to actually _meet_, you know, the person who tricked you under the tree – and -"

"And?"

"And now I know – now I know James is _magical_," she wails, a fresh stream of tears crossing the expanse of her fair face, wetting Remus's T-shirt.

He hugs her tightly, nonplussed but determined to show compassion despite the curiosity burning in his throat. _How do you know James?_ and furthermore, _How do you know James is magical?_ quiver on the tip of his tongue.

But as the initial hysterics begin to subside, Lily sniffles, wiping furiously at her red eyes. "You see," she hiccups, "I met him a long time ago, and I didn't know he was your roommate until you mentioned Blackie, and -"

He relaxes, and cups her chin with one hand. "That's all? That's nothing to cry over, Lily."

"Yes, it is," the girl says, turning her face away. "Because something he said made – made me realize that he's _not_ a Muggle, and if he's not then -"

"Hey," Remus protests, kneeling by her chair. "Talk to me."

_You know, I only had two friends at school, so my name was fairly unknown…_

_There's Sirius, he's my best mate…_

_You've hated me for a long time, Lily. Third year…_

There's nothing wrong with James's being magical, exactly. It explains a lot about him, and once Lily has the chance to talk to him, it will explain a lot about her.

But for some reason, this puts her on a different playing field. Now it is evident she doesn't know enough about him, doesn't know him at all.

"How much of what he said was a lie?" she asks herself quietly, as a concerned Remus traces her jawbone.

And now she no longer has a reason.

She no longer has a reason to be a Muggle,

she no longer has a reason to stay,

she no longer has a reason not to fight.

And Lily is scared to death.

--

Headquarters is a sad place.

It is not sad-_looking_ – no, the curtains of the Prewett home are cheery colors, the furniture is kept shining clean, and there is always light streaming in through the windows. It is a warm country home, no neighbors for miles, and with eight or ten people crammed inside, it should be lively and glad.

But it is a sad place, because in the kitchen with its lingering aroma of baking bread, around the wooden table which has been worn by children's crude carvings and handprints, there have been discussions of death, war, and the inevitable.

Right now no one is at the table but James, being force-fed by 27 year-old Molly Weasley. Two of her three sons, hair as bright red as their father's, run screaming and laughing around her skirt as she fries massive amounts of bacon.

"There you go, dear," she says kindly, sliding meat onto his plate. "Eat up, you look bone-thin."

James is used to hearing this by now.

"Oh, stop bothering him," Fabian Prewett says cheerfully as he comes through the door. Unlike his brother, he wears a ring – an engagement ring – which is the only way anyone can tell them apart.

That, and Fabian's attitude is much brighter.

"After all, he's got a right to be; this was his second mission," he adds. Molly shushes him.

He inclines his head, apologizing, and says, "Billy-boy, Charlie, why don't you go outside and talk to Uncle Gid? He'll play Quidditch with you."

The children depart, still laughing, two shocks of red hair.

"Then how was it?" Fabian asks quickly, taking a seat at the table. Molly turns back to the stove, cooking more to keep her hands busy – and to eavesdrop – than out of necessity.

"Bad situation," James says, swallowing. "About fifteen supporters – none of them from his inner circle."

Fabian frowns. "Yeah, that's what Albus said. Seems odd, though."

"What do you mean?"

He gives a light shrug. "That out of all of those people, not one of them would be a real Death Eater. Did it seem as though You-Know-Who hadn't planned it?"

"I don't know," James says wearily. "It just was… a bad situation." _More than bad_, he thinks. _It was chaos._

The kitchen door swings open once again, and Sirius stands there. His black jeans are spattered with water, his dress shirt clingly haplessly to his skin, and his hair is decorated in water droplets.

"Raining out," he explains, glancing at Fabian's ring before saying, "James, can I talk to you?"

He nods and gets up, strangely relieved to be rescued.

Sirius brings him past the entry hall where a sodden Gideon is trooping in behind his nephews, broom in hand; past the living room, where the few Order members left are discussing timepieces, and out the side door, where they stood huddled under a tin lean-to, the sound of rain on metal thundering in their ears.

"What are we outside for," James tries to say – it's more of a remark than a question, because he doesn't really care.

"_What?_" Sirius says loudly.

"_I said, what are we outside for?"_

"_Privacy,"_ the younger man replies, and anywhere else it would not have made sense.

James looks at the scenery, rolling hills of green English meadows. There is a cemetery in the distance. "_Well?"_

"_Well what?"_

"_Well what did you want to talk about?"_ he demands in exasperation.

Sirius shivers and wishes he'd brought a jacket, or perhaps a script. It seems _he_ is the one left to be closing the gaps these days; it seems darkly ironic, somehow, that the person who wanted to involve himself the least was simply so involved.

Some time passes and James get irritated before his friend finally says, "_I talked to Lily the other day."_

"_Did you?"_

"_Finally interested, then?"_ he replies snidely without meaning to. James gives him a look, and he sighs. "_Right. Well. How much do you know about her?"_

A pause. "_Enough_."

That's fair, Sirius thinks. At least he is honest. But the eighteen year-old can't shake the feeling that some important piece has failed to come into play.

And now, he believes, he's found it.

"_How much do you want to know about her?"_

--

Lily and Marlene are sitting, drinking tea. Too much time has passed since Lily last spent time with a friend like this.

"You never told me how Alice is," she says, idly stirring the leaves in her cup. "Are she and Frank still -?"

"Engaged after graduation, actually," the brunette says, sipping. The café is quiet and it feels safe to talk, as long as they don't mention anything blatant.

That's actually why Lily called her here – to talk, to socialize, without the unsafe mention of the resistance. For now, she doesn't want to think about it.

So she just says, "Oh?"

"Yes. The wedding isn't planned for awhile yet, though; Alice hasn't spoken to her mum and dad."

"It's sweet," Lily says.

Marlene smiles, adds a little more sugar to her tea. "Fabian Prewett is engaged too, to a Scottish girl. Apparently she's on holiday or something with her family right now, so I haven't met her yet."

"And what about you and Gideon?" Lily asks slyly.

A long sigh. "Me and Gid…"

--

It's a long while before James can process what he's learned. Sirius goes inside, claiming cold, but maybe it's that he doesn't want to be there, doesn't want to watch hope crush down on his friend again.

James sits on the concrete steps at the end of the lean-to, not concerned as rain slicks his hair down against his forehead. Inside he hears Molly saying to her sons, _shush, shush, stay inside, leave him alone._

"Leave me alone?" he croaks, spreading his fingers out against the rain. He stares at his palms. "Leave me alone?"

_She won't be able to leave you alone. You're James Byron Potter._

"I know who I am, Sirius."

_Who is he anyway? He's just your roommate._

"I know who _he_ is, Sirius."

The rain batters his distinctly pale face and mixes with the salt water on his cheeks.

--

"So I've really messed everything up," Marlene finishes, and Lily's mouth is a small 'o' of surprise.

"But… couldn't you explain there was nothing, that it was a misunderstanding?"

The older woman smiles grimly because Lily doesn't get it. "You think love is perfect, Lee," she says, "but it's not. So what if he loves me? We won't be happy together."

"I really don't understand," the girl admits.

"Because… we aren't _right_ for each other. It's just not one of those problems that fades with time."

She is silent.

"Sorry," Marlene tries to say, though there's no reason to apologize.

"What if your love story never gets finished?" Lily asks in the same little-girl voice she used when crying to Remus. She isn't sure _who_ she's talking about now, but it probably doesn't matter.

Marlene offers her a sad smile. "The best love stories are those left unwritten, dear."

* * *

**Author's Note:** Ahh! This chapter was such a refresher to write. As you'll see, Marlene will become more and more important as the story goes on. Originally I just threw her in there for a bit of fun, but I really have grown to love her character, and I think you'll all like her storyline.

Before anyones jumps on me for James's middle name - oi, this is _AU_. That means it's not always going to be canon, and I definitely don't have a problem taking artistic license with unconfirmed things such as middle names. If that hinders your enjoyment of this story, I'm very sorry.

Please review - I'm trying to do a mass upload, but I'm afraid it took me extra long to type this. Hehe.


	24. In Which The Unforgiveable Occurs

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter twenty-four**

There is a ginger knock on Lily's door.

It has been about a week since her visit with Marlene, and not much has occurred since, except a short letter from the mentioned promising to contact her if her assistance is required.

It now lies tucked under her pillow, creased and ragged around the edges from folding and unfolding. Lily is acutely aware of its presence and though she has been told to burn it, she cannot – the need to read it over and over again is too strong. Without that scrap of proof, the Order is not real, the danger is not real.

When there is a knock, though, she double-checks that the note is completely hidden, and then goes to the door.

A peek through the peephole is enough.

"James," she stammers, her heart thrumming in her chest. _He's a wizard_, her mind insists, _you need to tell him you know._

_Not right now,_ the other part of Lily commands. _Remember what happened when you tried to confront Remus?_

"Wotcher," he says a bit breathlessly, and she notices his face is a bit pink. "I – erm – I'm back. Thought I might visit you. Say a belated Merry Christmas, and all."

He is holding a bouquet of daisies, and extends it to her. Startled and blushing, Lily accepts the flowers.

"That's so sweet of you," she says weakly. "I'm afraid I haven't got anything for you…"

"I don't need anything," he assures her.

Lily looks down. "And you brought Blackie," she says in pleased surprise, getting over her timidity and reaching down to give the dog a scratch behind the ears.

James laughs, a bit too lightly, but he also visibly relaxes. "Yeah, he missed you. Or so he said."

"Have you been talking to him?" she asks slyly, looking up.

A childish grin. "A bit."

She laughs, and James is hooked, forgetting all he'd told himself when he decided – or, rather, was ordered by Sirius – to visit. So when she says, _Come in, won't you?_ he thinks nothing of it.

"I haven't seen you in awhile," she says as she closes the door behind her, and James isn't sure if she's talking to him or the dog. But it becomes apparent when she says, "But you're still a cutie, aren't you?

Blackie's tail thumps on the floor, and James scowls in pale jealousy – when Lily isn't looking, of course.

"You can sit down, if you want," she offers, gesturing to the chair. He obliges, and she takes her bunk, swinging her legs and looking at him. "You've been gone for nearly two weeks," she adds.

"Oh, yeah…" he rumples his hair and gives a long sigh, trying not to think of it (_spells, shouts, dead faces, blood maybe it's mine oh lord it's not he says_) "Family issues again."

Lily tilts her head to appear sympathetic (_when do I tell him? Why didn't he tell me? Did he really have family issues or is that a lie?_) "Do you have siblings?"

"No, I'm an only child." (_She and Remus – blood, maybe it's mine and get out of my head!_)

She isn't looking at him when he says this; she is tucking the bouquet into a large glass of water; she turns back and says, "Oh. You're lucky, then." (_Is that a lie, too? When is he going to tell me? Now?_)

(_Lucky_, he thinks. _Anything but._)

James squeezes his eyes shut, trying to get the voices out, but they keep echoing in his ears. _A bad situation_, he told Fabian, as if it is as simple as falling off a broom or being late to work. _A bad situation_. A bad situation is easily outnumbering 15 or so aspiring Death Eaters, a bad situation is being trapped in a room with an angry werewolf…

… come to think of it, he still has to resolve things with Remus.

Lily's breath catches as he looks back up, appearing suddenly weary. Now she sees the blue half-circles beneath his eyes, and any part of her that hadn't been already focused on him _is_.

"You look like you're going to be sick," she says worriedly, her hands coming up to catch his as he rubs his temples. "Do you need to lie down? A glass of water?"

"No, no," he insists, pulling away. "Just a headache. It's gone now." And he offers her a bright smile as if to say, _See?_

Lily _can't_ tell him today. Not today.

"You should lie down," she decides, getting up. "Here, take my bunk. Haven't you been getting enough sleep?"

"I've been sleeping outside," he tells her truthfully, though of course he can't say how, he can't say _by the way Lily I'm magical and I can turn into a deer but it's illegal so shhh._

Things just don't work that way, and yet he finds himself wanting them to.

So he lies down, or at least reclines, and she kneels and pulls the blanket over him, murmuring, "You're a bit of an idiot then, aren't you?"

And he can feel his heart pounded wildly against his chest, he can smell her watermelon shampoo, and then he leans forward and he kisses her.

Their mouths are pressed together, and their eyes flutter closed, and suddenly he's pulling her onto the bunk with him and they're kissing a whole lot more.

He pulls away, kisses her again, pulls away, his hands are moving the way hands do –

- and then one of her shoots out and grabs his as it gets dangerously close to the pillow. She pulls back and she says, "Stop -!"

He does, more out of surprise than of willingness.

Which is when it hits him – what he told himself before coming in, _we must only be friends, we must not cross lines that can't be crossed._

--

"_How much do you want to know about her?_" Sirius asked, and there was a second pause.

"_As much as I have to, I suppose,_" James said, curiosity piqued. He didn't really know what Sirius was on about, but knowing his friend he'd cut straight to the point. Small talk was out of the way.

Sirius turned to watch the rain hitting the concrete walk outside the lean-to. "_Well, for one she knows Remus._"

"_She -_" James spluttered. _That_ was a connection he'd never seen coming, but of course it shouldn't have been odd – Remus had to have friends at the university, after all. "_Well… okay_."

"_And for two, she's dating him_," his friend said bluntly.

--

James's eyes are wild as he pulls himself away, tumbles off the bunk. "I'm sorry," he says quickly, scrambling to his feet. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean -"

She stares at him incredulously, her own mind a tornado of emotion and questions and ideas and all she can says is, "I…" she touches her lips.

_I what?_ he'll wonder later. _I didn't know you felt that way? I wish you'd kept your hands to yourself, you creeper?_

But for now he's heading for the door, he's looking for his cap but forgetting he didn't wear it today, he's retreating and then he's _gone_, dog at his heels.

_The best love stories are those left unwritten, dear._ Marlene's voice echoes in a shocked Lily's head and after a while of stillness she pulls herself up. And she curls her finger inward, dragging the little letter toward her.

The little letter which James had been alarmingly close to finding, and magical or not he _can't_ know about the resistance.

So maybe Lily doesn't regret stopping him, in a way.

In another way, she feels like she's made the worst mistake of her life.

She sits there, still treasuring the warmth of where he'd lain. And she wonders what it all _means_.

Lily burns the letter, just like she was told to.

--

"_How do you know?_" he wanted to know. There was a long, long pause as Sirius tugged at his glossy hair – a habit picked up from James – and tried how best to relay that information.

Finally he decided: "I saw them."

* * *

**Author's Note:** This is a lot shorter, but very important. I hope you enjoyed it. The official song for this chapter is _Play the Game_ by Queen, because it is unbearably cute.

Also, I'd like to offer an apology for the long gap between updates. Yes, I am updating _Madman_ more often, but that is because it's shorter overall and I'd like to get it out of the way so I can focus on my other work. Please bear with me- once summer vacation starts in a few days, I'll have much more time to type these all out. I really appreciate everyone's patience and politeness.

Please review. :)


	25. In Which More Is Learned

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter twenty-five**

Remus's great flaw is that he has saved all this anger, all this battle for Sirius Black, but now that he has used it, he doesn't have anything left.

He feels like an emotional shell, because though he's laughing and smiling and frowning on the outside, on the inside nothing is happening, nothing at all. It is as if someone has taken a vacuum and sucked the concern from him like marrow from his bones, and the worst part is, he doesn't care.

Not one bit.

So he doesn't have anything to say to James when he returns and apologizes. He understands the built-in phobia most wizards have. He appreciates that James can overcome it. But he doesn't have anything to say. And he doesn't try to come up with something, either.

And he certainly doesn't ask him about Lily, either, but it's not because James looks positively shell-shocked right now (he does) and it's certainly not because he cares about what Lily was upset about (he _does_ care, a lot) but because it's just not his place.

Well, not until Lily knocks on the door a few days later, and says Remus do you want to go somewhere today and he says of course where do you want to go.

She looks past him and sees James standing in the hallway like a deer in the headlights. Her face goes pink. "I – Remus, grab your jacket and hurry, the stores will all close soon."

"Alright, alright," he exclaim, throwing on his coat. "Let's go. James, I'll be -"

"Okay," the other man replies, as if he's in pain. He retreats to another room and Remus raises an eyebrow, closes the door.

"How odd," he comments.

Lily doesn't respond.

"Where do you want to go today?"

_Anywhere but here,_ she thinks desperately, actually saying, "I want to go to London, if you don't mind. Dumbledore contacted me about – well, you know – and there are some things I need to pick up."

He scowls slightly at the mention, but doesn't say anything, which Lily takes for agreement.

A short stroll takes them to a safe location to Disapparate, though, Remus thinks with slight grumpiness, they could have departed privately at the flat. But considering the state he last saw Lily in, he isn't ready to argue with her.

They arrive in Diagon Alley just outside of Flourish and Blotts, where there is apparently a sale going on.

"After Christmas shopping," Lily comments with a tinge of nostalgia. "Dad used to take me every year, you know. Loved Diagon Alley, couldn't get enough of it."

"I know, I met him once," Remus says, recalling faintly Lily's father: a tall, thin man, balding but with enough of his dark red hair to recognize him for a relative of hers. He'd been extremely excited to meet his daughter's friends. "Good man."

She gives him a small smile, then trots into the bookstore without warning, all nostalgia apparently behind her. "The sales are calling!" she cries as he follows on her heels.

The bookstore is a flurry of activity – books are literally stacked to the ceiling, attendants rush back and forth, customers flock to the most popular magazines. And Lily and Remus are in the middle of it, the former now alive with excitement.

"I love this store," she declares as she plucks a copy of _The Indicative Animagus_ and flips through it. "It just makes me want to fill up on knowledge."

"Did you even bring Wizard money?" he questions skeptically as she pulls another tome, _Memoirs of a Perfect Pureblood_, off the shelf.

"I actually stopped at Gringotts yesterday," she admits. "My mum gave me some money so I changed it to Galleons and decided to bring you shopping with me."

"How considerate of you," Remus says dryly, though he is truthfully glad for her enthusiasm; compared to when he last saw her – an emotional wreck – this sudden change is more than welcome.

He faithfully follows her as she searches the bargain bin, picks out a new quill, admires bottle of multi-colored ink. Finally she makes her purchases and throws her shopping bag over her shoulder; they step out once more into the wintry street.

"Is there anywhere you want to go?" she asks.

"I'm fine," Remus says. "I was in Hogsmeade a few days ago, after all."

She looks instantly guilty. The full moon has come and gone every month for the entire duration of their friendship, but he can see she still gets depressed when he mentions it.

"It's alright," he adds quickly, searching her expression. "It's so much better now – that brewer works miracles, Lily."

He takes special care not to let the nickname, _Lee_, slip.

They walk a little farther, a destination-less meandering, until they find themselves outside the back lot of the Leaky Cauldron. Lily stares up at it.

"I might just rent a room here, when I move back," she says thoughtfully.

Remus looks at her, an unreadable expression in his eyes. "So you're really moving into Wizarding Britain? Permanently?"

"Permanently," she affirms. "I found a good opportunity. I'm sure if you're interested I can put in a good word for you -"

"No," he says quite firmly. "They won't need me. Dumbledore has already given me an education – I can't bother him more."

She wants to explain, _this is a favor to the world, not just Dumbledore._

But she's side-tracked by the vague though, _I wonder if James has been here lately?_

And then that becomes, _I wonder how he is…_

Questions spin around her head, and almost none of them can be asked.

What she does ask is, "So you're going to be alright at Cardiff by yourself?"

"I'm not staying at Cardiff," he replies incredulously. "If you're moving back, I'm moving back. I only chose Cardiff because you did."

Lily frowns and readjusts her bag on her shoulder. "Remus," she says, "you can't just do what I do. What about getting a Muggle job?"

He shrugs. "I'll get by."

She is skeptical, but something occurs to her before she can press the issue. "I have to go to Eyelop's before we go back," she says quickly. "Do you mind?"

Of course he minds. He wants to keep her as far away from this world as possible – its dangers. Death Eaters. War. _The resistance_, which, though he has been told so little about it, Remus knows can almost certainly lead to her death.

But Remus doesn't have any fight left in him. So he says, "Not at all."

--

Lily, alone in her dormitory except for her quietly sleeping roommate, is curled up in her bunk, leaning against the wall. In her hands she has _The Indicative Animagus_, which she has been reading with dwindling interest for the past half-hour.

_The Animagus is the animal representation of one's character and holds many insights into one's personality, manner, and values system. It cannot change, being the permanent basis of a person's being, and therefore is much easier to interpret than a Patronus, though much harder to produce._

Lily yawns. It's like studying in McGonagall's classroom all over again, and though she finds the subject interesting, it's just not light reading. She puts it by her side and instead picks up _Memoirs of a Perfect Pureblood_, a small brown book with simple lettering across the front.

_Very modest compared to the typical pureblood supremacist_, she thinks.

The memoirs begin as normal – an outline of the author's childhood. Right away Lily feels shocked – the author's last name is _Black_, and he is clearly a relative of Sirius's.

"So he's a pureblood, huh?" she says to herself.

_Everyone in the Black family was in Slytherin_, the author wrote, _and I was proud to be sorted likewise._

Lily frowns.

_I was in Gryffindor, too._ Is Sirius ashamed of that?

But then she remembers how he blamed his parents' politics for his cruel childhood, and how James spoke of Sirius's good will. She relaxes, and flips through the book once more.

It is a fairly interesting read, though very biased politically; although she looks carefully, there is no mention of Sirius in the memoir. After all, the Black family is a large one, dispersed throughout Britain.

Most interesting to Lily are the illustrations – maps of old Black family lands; sketches of influential ancestors; elaborate, hand-written family trees that take up several pages.

These intrigue her the most, because she _does_ find Sirius listed here, in tiny, neat lettering, beside _Regulus Black_, apparently his brother.

"Oh," she says softly, realizing that Regulus died very recently. A death date glimmers under his name. Barely 18. "Poor Sirius."

Sirius didn't seem bothered in the slightest, she thinks, and she wonders if he just doesn't show it or if he really doesn't care.

She skims along the tree some more, shaking off the depressing thought, and instead marvels at how interconnected all pureblood families seem to be. Indeed, she recognizes a few names: Weasley, Longbottom, Malfoy…

And, her index finger moving across the page, she hits it.

Potter.

Lily's eyes snap shut. She's suddenly back kneeling by his side, surprised by the whimsical kiss; no, further, speaking in a bookstore like it was the last time; even further, sitting on that bench in cold November air as he grinned at her.

All because of that name, Potter. She's not even the least bit surprised that she just found him in a random _book_, no – it's more the rush of feeling that accompanies the discovery, the dull pounding of her heart against her chest.

She lays the book down the leans again the white plaster wall, staring at the generic dormitory, the generic furniture, and realizes she is just a generic person. And James – James is _extraordinary._

"He's a pureblood, eh?" A voice drifts from above. "I'm a bit surprised; I always knew he was magical, but I didn't know there was so much hype about bloodlines."

Dumbfounded, Lily looks up to see Elle's upside-down face over the edge of her bunk. The girl gestures vaguely toward the book.

"You're… a witch?" the redhead stammers.

A girlish laugh. "Lord, no," Elle giggles. "I just noticed you were, that's all. I wish I was, it seems pretty glamorous."

It takes Lily a minute to absorb this. Ironically, she is not surprised in the least. But perhaps the number of recent events have taken all the surprise out of her; the unexpected, she muses, has become paradoxically routine.

"I don't think you would want to be," she finally says, much to the bemusement of her roommate. She sinks back into her pillows and gives a long sigh. "It seems like a great lot of drama to me."

"Love drama?"

"That's part of it," Lily agrees.

"But don't you know," Elle says earnestly, "the best love stories are those left unwritten?"

* * *

**Author's Note:** I know, this chapter is rather uneventful and doesn't progress the plot at all. But it's somewhat important. (And if you're thinking, _Uh, didn't Marlene say that line a couple chapters ago?_ then yes, she did. Think about it.) Please review!


	26. In Which Brotherhood Has Come To An End

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter twenty-six**

It can be said that James is rather talented at avoiding people: Gideon whenever he was at headquarters, Remus after he'd been "outed", and now Lily.

However, it can also be said that James is terrible at keeping his mouth shut when something is truly bothering him, and so that is where we find him now, complaining to Sirius in a tiny apartment in Dublin.

"And I haven't seen her since," James finishes, much to the chagrin of his friend. "What is that look for?"

"This is the 'my best friend's a whopping idiot' look," Sirius says rather flatly, crossing his arms and leaning back in the big puce-colored armchair he is currently occupying. James is seated in a matching sofa across from it. "How much damage could you _do_, Prongs? Moving in while she still has a boyfriend?"

James let loose a frustrated growl. "I _said_ I didn't do it on purpose, Sirius, what more do you need?"

"I dunno, maybe a 'Gee, I won't overwhelm her right now' kind of thing?" Sirius suggests sarcastically.

The 19 year-old watches his friend skeptically. "Why are you suddenly so defensive of Lily? I thought you said you didn't like her."

Sirius heaves a great sigh, and looks at the floor, back up, and at the floor again. He opens and closes his mouth several times before saying, "Well, she's kind of grown on me. She reminds me of Rachel."

"Holy -" James slumps into the sofa and seizes fistfuls of his hair in irritation. "Do not bring that – don't bring her up."

"I'm offended."

"Offended because I never want to hear my current love interest compared to _Rachel_?"

"A tad, yeah." Sirius shrugs, and lets it slide. _There's no use bringing up old arguments._

James seems to have the same attitude because he doesn't respond, merely looks thoughtfully out the window and into the distance. He can see the international airport from where he is, and accompanied by the sight is a feeling of utter discontent.

"This is the last place I want to be," he admits. "I wish I was with her right now, so I could know what she was thinking about."

Sirius lets out a long _woosh_ of breath and regards his friend seriously. "You've got in bad, mate," he declares finally, getting up from his seat. He strides across the room and snaps the blinds shut; James turns his attention away from the window. "I suggest you come up with a game plan."

"Well, I dunno if I can, now that I know she's just another Rachel," James grumbles, a sour expression on his face.

"Stop outing. I'm serious."

James arranges his expression into that of a polite listener, prompting an eye roll from his friend, and replies demurely, "Do go on, Mr. Black."

Sirius sniffs. "Well. Fire of all, you're not going to get anywhere with your rash actions. You need to take it slow."

"Because that worked _before_."

"Yes, it probably would have if you actually had done it. Anyway, right now she's confused. She clearly has some feelings for you, but she's still got Remus, and, from the looks of things, they've been together a long time."

James winces; he doesn't need reminding. "So what do you propose I do?" he asks, slightly less sarcastic now.

"Make friends with her," Sirius tells him sincerely. "Help her with her homework, or ask for her help with yours. Tell her a little about your mum and dad. Bring her to the park. Be the best _friend_ you can be, don't hit on her, and for god's sake _stop_ avoiding her."

"You want me to take her to the park."

"The dog park, even. You can take Blackie along."

James rolls his eyes, and Sirius whaps him upside the head.

"See, this is why you're in this position," he scolds, dropping onto the sofa. "You don't have an open mind."

Before James can respond, Sirius flops back in the armchair, dangling his legs over the side, and adds, "Just listen to me. Lord knows it would be the first time."

"What, you think I just ignore everything you say?" James snaps, his eyes hardening. There is a tense silence before his friend answers.

"You're always doing illogical things, James. You're going to a Muggle university when I've told you time and time again that it's a waste of time. Your _love life_ is all one big drama show – don't you think I might be a _little_ tired of it?"

"Oh, because you're one to talk," the older teen says snarkily. "You with your mood swings, and always changing your mind about people, and leaping before you look."

Sirius laughs harshly, but he is affronted and James knows it. "Leaping before I look, eh? That's ironic, coming from you. I half-expected you'd learn from your mistakes, you know?"

"What, because you saw that coming? You think I don't still think about it _everyday_, Sirius, you think -" James clenches his fists and lowers his voice. "You think I don't _hate_ everything that happened? You're the one who said I should try to make things right, _you_ said I should talk to Rachel."

"Because it's _easier_," Sirius snarls, and he is truly acting in umbrage now. They haven't had a full-on argument for a long time, not since he was a seventh year and James was just starting at Cardiff. And as much as he wants to avoid old wounds, Sirius has had enough. "But now I'm saying that things could change. If you want them to, you have to stop being so bloody proud about it."

"There you go, changing your mind again. I don't get you sometimes, Sirius, I really don't."

The young man in the armchair snorts and says, "Well, no one bloody _does_. But that's probably because I'm so damn moody, isn't it?"

James's mouth tilts down in a scowl. "Well, I can share my _honest opinion_, can't I? Aren't we _best mates_?" The way he stresses "best mates" makes it sound twisted and nasty. There is a whisper-thing vein of anger coursing through his heart, and he feels vindictive and cruel.

It's impossible to say how it escalated to this, the implosion of the conversation, a few words here and there leading to the exposure of issues left too long untended.

Sirius lets out a shuddering breath and says stiffly, "Yeah, _that_ we are."

"Then maybe you should let me make my decisions on my own, because I already _know_ what I did was stupid. I don't need _you_ to tell me that."

"What's stupid, James?" Sirius asks, sitting up. "What's stupid, what you did to Lily or what you did to Rachel?"

There is a long pause. "Why do you keep bringing her up?" James asks softly, dangerously. This is quickly becoming risky, and they both know it. But Sirius pushes on.

"Are you finally willing to admit there might be a link between the two? Because until you do, I can't see why I _wouldn't_ bring her up. I was part of it, too, James. I cared about her. Or do you even care about that? It's all about you?"

"What, so you're just going to keep a grudge against me because of the past," James says flatly. His heart is beating a million miles a minute. He doesn't want to think about this, not about his rash actions, or his confession, or Sirius's utter disappointment. He desperately wishes for a subject change.

As it turns out, he gets his wish.

"Cor," Sirius says, suddenly pale and quiet. "Last time I tried to keep a grudge against someone, he offed himself."

There is a long, chilled silence, and the previous argument is forgotten. Goosebumps rise on James's skin; for a moment he doesn't comprehend. And when he does, he feels sick to his stomach.

"Reg -"

"He switched sides, you know," Sirius says in a rush, though his voice is still deathly thin and his eyes averted toward the ceiling. "He didn't have the guts to keep going and he got himself killed instead. Stupid bastard."

Another pause, and James shivers.

"Anyway, it's not… fuck, I dunno…"

"How did you find out?" James asks softly. Sirius blinks and pinches the bridge of his nose in a valiant effort to maintain his composure.

"I got a letter from my mum, guess she wanted to make sure I knew how much I'd 'ruined' him before I left…"

James swears under his breath and pushes his own worries to the back of his mind. It's hard to know what to say – to someone whose family was both his bane and yet his impetus for change, somehow "I'm sorry" doesn't cut it. He finally asks, "Are you dealing with it alright?"

"No," Sirius says. He's crying.


	27. In Which No One Is Happy

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter twenty-seven**

When James leaves Sirius's apartment, he should be thinking of ways to cheer up his best friend, or wondering why Sirius has kept all this grief for so long, how he never could've noticed. But he is instead feeling _relieved_. And he's thinking, _God bless you, Alphard Black._

With a hefty inheritance of gold, Sirius has been made independent again – no mooching off James, no crashing at the Potters' manor, no death wish at headquarters.

It seems callous to say, but James has also been made independent, because no longer does his left revolve around the emotional needs of his best friend. No more pressure to join the Order full-time. No more obligations to protect a world he isn't sure he wants to protect. Truth be told, when someone's spent as much time away as James has, he tends to feel a little separated, unconcerned even.

Once back at Cardiff, he has to take so many precautions to remain unnoticed. It's not as difficult once he remembers his cloak. He slips through the streets, literally invisible.

And he arrives back at his flat.

It's empty – Remus must be out, again – so he retreats to his room without a word and falls into bed, hit by a wave of exhaustion. He hasn't slept for days. Hell, he doesn't even know what day it _is_.

Despite being so tired, dreams of Lily keep James tossing and turning. Naturally, he can't get their kiss out of his mind: the adrenaline, the precious uninterrupted seconds…and the way she said _stop_.

Did she really mean it? (Of course.) Was she thinking only of Remus? (He hopes not.)

James turns over and punches his pillow, angrier than he was even at Sirius's teasing. It just isn't fair…

--

_Lily,_

_I know whenever I write it's about the war, or trouble at Mungo's, or other depressing news. So you may appreciate this._

_Alice and Frank have finally decided on a wedding date. It's a bit hasty, because it will be a very small ceremony. Alice wants you and I to be witnesses. Next Sunday. Will you come?_

_Love from_

_Marlene_

Lily takes this all in with little surprise, knowing that once upon a time she and Marlene and Alice could've been a wonderful trio, and this is their way of coaxing her back.

Frankly, she isn't sure how she feels about that.

But weddings are a welcome divergence from war, and soon she finds herself in a tiny church foyer watching Alice put the finishing touches on her makeup.

Alice is beautiful. She is wearing a navy pants suit, with her hair done up and a diamond sparkling on her finger. This is only a ceremony of vows, nothing large or special, but Marlene proclaims it a most important event and drapes a necklace of her own on Alice's neck.

"Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue," she declares.

"What's old?" Alice asks in worry. "The suit's new."

"That would be you," Lily says slyly, evoking a squeal of indignation. She smiles.

"Well, here goes nothing," Alice says. They exit the room.

Of course, what no one bothered to tell Lily is that Sirius Black is waiting in the next room with Frank. Her eyes go wide, and he cocks an eyebrow at her, but they can't talk until the couple is wed and Alice and Frank kiss.

Marlene disappears quickly. And then Sirius takes Lily by the arm and leads her past the newlyweds and to the table of refreshments.

"They look happy," she comments, tugging her arm from his. "Do you think they'll always be this happy?"

"Of course not," Sirius replies bluntly, snatching up a glass of cheap wine. "No one's happy all the time."

She doesn't say anything at first, but watches him down the drink in one gulp, and listens half-heartedly as Alice and Frank carry on a conversation with the minister. Marlene is still nowhere to be found. "Are _you_ happy?" she asks finally.

He ignores the quesiton and refills his wine.

"So…"

"They needed someone on Frank's end, and I was the only one available on short notice," he says suddenly, before she can ask more questions. "Funny that we should know all the same people, isn't it?"

"A little," she agrees, looking at him discreetly. The hand clutching his wine glass is shaking, but she says nothing.

"I wonder why we haven't crossed paths before," he adds.

"We have, apparently, except it seems I didn't commit you to memory."

Sirius smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.

--

Albus Dumbledore is sitting in Headquarters, as he almost always can be found, thinking. It's impossible to say what a genius such as Dumbledore might think about; beneath his gentle and merry exterior is a calculating and complex man with a plan so intricate that until it plays out, not a soul but he will know whether or not it is on track.

In any case, he is sitting, and he is thinking, and it strikes him that sitting and thinking would be doubly productive if he were also teaching at the same time, and so he extracts a small vial from his sleeve and touches his wand to his temple.

Out come memories, thoughts, dreams, whatever may be useful to the Order in the future. Dumbledore is far from an idiot. He is not invincible. Ideas are.

And that is how Sirius finds him, extracting memory after memory, only particularly important ones, and he lines the bottles up in two neat little rows on the table in front of him.

"Professor Dumbledore?" ventures Sirius, feeling oddly out of place. He's wearing dress robes. Truth be told, lately he's grown too used to Muggle clothes and Muggle living.

The old man looks up past his spectacles and says, "Ah, Sirius. Please, sit."

"That's alright," Sirius says, and out of his pocket he pulls a small burlap bag. The telltale jingle of gold alights their ears. "I just wanted to give you this. For use by the Order."

Dumbledore accepts the bag hesitantly and sets it before him without looking inside. "Surely you need the gold," he replies gently.

"With all due respect, sir, I've got loads more." Sirius tries to smile, but nothing really makes its way onto his face.

"Yes, indeed," says the old wizard thoughtfully, stroking his beard. "Well, the Order thanks you, young Sirius."

Sirius nods.

As he's leaving the house to sit in the lean-to, as he so often does, he doesn't see Dumbledore quietly cross the room and hand the bag to Molly Weasley. Her three sons clinging to her apron and two more on the way, she opens the bag with surprise and bursts into grateful tears.

--

There's a pounding on the door. James sits up, and his first reaction is to reach for his wand. But as the pounding continues, he remembers where he is and _who_ he is and decides it's quite unlikely someone's come to assassinate him.

Just in case, though, he sticks the wand in his pocket and pads to the door. He looks through the peephole; a flash of red is enough to make him clap a hand over his mouth and begin backing away –

_Crash!_ A chair topples over onto the floor. James swears – loudly – as he scrambles to put it back up, but the damage is done. He hears the fatal word: _Alohomora._

--

"Just what do you think you're playing at?" demands Gideon. His breath comes out as puffs of warm air in the frosty day as he stands under the lean-to, glaring at Sirius's back. Sirius doesn't face him. He sits on the steps, staring out into the English countryside.

Far off in the distance, there is a tiny cemetery. He can barely make it out.

Finally he says, "I'm not playing at anything."

"Oh, yeah?" Gideon gives a skeptical huff. "Giving my sister _500 Galleons_, that's not playing at anything? We don't accept charity, especially from the likes of _you_, Black."

"The likes of me? That's a laugh."

"If you're expecting some kind of favor in return -"

"I'm expecting nothing," Sirius snarls, finally standing to face him. Gideon takes a surprised step back. "I gave that money to Dumbledore; it's none of my business what he did with it. But since you asked, I think Molly and Arthur should have no problem accepting the charity. With five kids you'd think they'd want a house of their own, don't you, Prewett?"

There is a resounding silence as Sirius takes several controlled breaths, surprised even himself. Then Gideon lifts his chin stiffly and backs off.

"…thanks," he says brusquely. He returns to the house.

Sirius sits back down, shaking, and wishing for once that nobody knew his name.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Hi! Sorry for the long wait. If you follow _We All Fall In Love Sometimes_ or if you looked at my profile you will know that I've been having some trouble uploading... since I don't have a keyboard for my main computer. Hehe. Anyway, here goes.

Oh, and I've been thinking a lot about rewriting the beginning of this story, once I finish uploading all the chapters. This particular chapter was completely rewritten yesterday, and I feel like my writing quality has gone up since I started. I'd really like to. Please let me know what you think. :)

I would love it if you reviewed! It's so quick and easy!


	28. In Which All Hell Breaks Loose

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter twenty-eight**

Lily, still in dress robes and stifling, has given up. It seems to her that everyone she has met knows about the Wizarding world somehow anyway, so what is the point of hiding? Out comes the wand.

"_Alohomora._"

With a rattle and a snap the door unlocks and, pushing down the feeling that she is a low-end burglar, she swings it open and steps inside.

The sight of James is comical - he is standing like a shocked deer, frozen in the middle of his kitchen. He is wearing jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt and looks so _ordinary_ despite the surprised expression and the wand sticking out of his pocket.

And suddenly she is frozen too, wand still leveled at his chest, her heart beating so hard she's sure he must hear it. Though she's come this far, the very sight of him renders her helpless. Stripped of the speech which she so nervously rehearsed on the way here.

Silence.

He's the first to break it, suddenly jerking and striding past her to slam the door shut. Without turning to face her, he mutters, "Put that thing away. Do you want to get arrested?"

"It's not like I've performed magic in front of a Muggle," she says with incredulity.

His hand is still on the doorknob. She is trembling. She puts her wand in the pocket of her robes anyway.

"How'd you find out?" he asks, and his voice sounds much different - high-pitched, tremulous.

"Sirius," Lily responds.

He finally turns, and he crosses the room to her, takes her by the shoulders and looks her in the eye. There is no sound except their labored breathing.

"Why have you been avoiding me?" she asks very, very quietly, searching his expression for some semblance of relief, the kind she is feeling now. She finds it, a brief flicker across his face.

"Never mind right now," he says, gripping her shoulders more tightly. "What - _exactly_ - did Sirius tell you?"

"He told me he was a wizard, and we'd gone to school together," she says nervously. "And today he said I should talk to you."

"You spoke with him today?"

Lily nods, searching James's face. He is disconcerted. "He was drowning himself in alcohol," she tells him. "I think there's something wrong."

"There's always something wrong with Sirius," James says dismissively, dropping his hands to his sides. "But you spoke to him _today_?"

"_Yes_," she repeats, annoyed, "at a wedding. My friends, from Hogwarts -"

James lets out a surprised scoff.

"So you see, I'm magical, too," Lily finishes, still watching his expression uncertainly, "and I had to come and talk to you. To ask why you didn't tell me yourself."

"Why I didn't -" He looks dumbstruck. "Jesus, Lily, I thought you were a Muggle! Why didn't _you_ tell _me_?"

"I am now, aren't I?" she defends. "All that talk about going away, that '_don't ever change_', that was all just going back to the Wizarding side, wasn't it? You could've said something."

James looks incredulous. Truly, she knows she's wrong to expect that much of him, but she wants _something_. Answers. For him to tell her what, exactly, they are instead of just asking question after question. "The last Muggle I told I was a wizard, I never saw again," he says, sounding slightly angry.

"But surely you must see _I'm not like that_."

"Why would I have any reason to think you're not?" he points out, and suddenly the response she was almost grateful for has turned ugly. He takes two steps back. "I barely know you!"

As soon as those words leave his mouth, he looks sick. Lily feels as if he's slapped her.

"We're friends," she says tentatively. "You don't meant that."

"We _are_ friends," he says, trailing off a bit. She feels startled, shaken, angry.

"Is our friendship so tenuous, then, that you would avoid me and not tell me why? That we'd keep secrets from one another?"

"Why do you _think_ I was avoiding you? I kissed you. We..."

"That doesn't many any sense at _all -_"

He stammers. "We..."

"What did it mean, sitting on the dock, talking about friendship?" she presses, half-pleading and half-infuriated. "What did it mean, taking - taking me out on that stupid motorbike to some trashy tavern? We're more than a kiss - what did it mean, kissing me?"

And suddenly James looks overwhelmed. No, James _is_overwhelmed. What Lily can't know is that she's just reminded him of what's important. That even if he says all the right words and does all the right things, her heart will still belong to someone else. And unbeknownst to Lily, James is not eager to rob such a - such a wonderful girl from Remus.

How often had he felt the aftermath of such a loss?

And even if he could get past that, there are so many things he hasn't told her, things he _can't_ tell her. It would never work.

So he decides: "Nothing. It meant nothing."

She is silent. It's her turn to step back.

"Lily -"

Better to lose a foot than risk a leg, right?

"I...see."

That cuts him to the quick, but he battles down the sentiment, pushes back a cavalry of affection threatening to burst out. "And besides," he croaks. "And besides, you never told _me_. How you know Remus."

"How I know Remus?" she repeats, voice jumping an octave.

He nods, taking a few deep breaths in a vain attempt to collect himself.

"_Well, isn't that what I'm here for?_" Lily practically shrieks, her disappointment now completely replaced by bubbling anger. "Do you not get it? I'm not here to interrogate you, I'm here to explain who I _am_ and who I _know_ and what that _means_! My bond with Remus has got nothing to do with it, but you know what? I chose to tell you everything and that _includes_ knowing your roommate, because I'm _magical_!"

Before she can gather herself he is shouting back. "I thought you would say something _earlier_! You have no right to criticize me when it takes _this_ long to hear form the woman herself...!"

_How dare she_, James is thinking furiously. _Where does she get off asking what a kiss means when she's probably doing that and a lot more with my friend!_

And Lily is being consumed by her own thoughts: _How can he not get it? I would've said Remus and I were magical if he'd given any indication that _he_ was!_

From an outsider's point of view, the situation is laughable. On one side is an unshaven man with rumpled, haphazardly thrown-on clothing; on the other is a woman in heels and ridiculously feminine robes looking like she just leapt out of a women's catalogue. They are screaming at each other incomprehensibly.

But an outsider would not recognize the heartbreak in James's eyes as he struggles not to remember the last time he fought like this, the last time he _felt_ like this, and an outsider would not hear the distress in Lily's plaintive _just answer me, please, for once_. An outsider would definitely not care about the shrill beeping of a watch: _Beep! Beep! Beep!_

"I've got to go," James says in horror, breaking his attention from the argument. In a flash he has grabbed his cap from the hat stand, he has tugged on a pair of shoes. Lily watches, dumbstruck and gaping. "Shit, shit, shit..."

"Don't go," she says almost desperately, her voice hoarse from yelling. "Whatever it is can wait, we have to talk -"

"It _can't wait_," James snaps, fumbling for his wand before remembering it's in his pocket. He Disapparates without another word.

She is speechless.

The argument is over, just like that, in the split-second it takes for him to disappear. Lily's head is still spinning wildly and frustration and anger are still shaking at the walls of her heart, but the sudden halt brings her gracelessly back to reality.

This is _James_ - how can she have said what she said? It was cruel. Unnecessary. Probably the biggest mistake she could make. Somehow, this isn't how she imagined a confrontation turning out.

It is a few a minutes before Lily accepts that he is not coming back any time soon, so, heart beating sickeningly against her breastbone, she Apparates back to her dormitory. No one is there. She looks for a distraction: homework, letters, maybe a natural disaster.

And then she is easily distracted, as if on cue, by Marlene McKinnon, appearing in the center of her room and looking panicked.

"Lily!" she cries immediately upon arrival. "Where have you been? I've been looking - if your Squib roommate hadn't told me you'd be back soon-"

"Oh, is she a Squib?" Lily asks politely, too irritated and exhausted to express surprise or even curiosity at Marlene's presence.

Her friend gives her an odd look. "Of course. I know her."

"Of course you do."

Apparently everyone knows each other, and Lily has just been left out of the loop. Go figure.

"Listen," Marlene says quickly, "there isn't much time to chitchat. There's an emergency within the Order. We need backup."

Lily looks up sharply. "I'm on it. Fill me in."

"Put on something more practical while I explain. Hurry!"

The redhead finds herself throwing on black robes she hasn't worn since June, and digging into her trunk for a good pair of sneakers while Marlene talks.

It's a place called Macmillan Manor, a mansion belonging to an old, well-to-do Wizarding family. They are "blood traitors" - people marrying outside of the Wizarding lines and contributing quite a lot to the cause of co-existence. Supporters of the Dark Lord have targeted the Macmillan family in recent years as the war progressed, and now the Order is keeping an eye on them.

"Why haven't I heard of this before?" Lily asks, tying her hair up in a hasty ponytail before ducking to knot her shoes.

"It's been kept under wraps," Marlene says, hopping from foot to foot, "but there's just been an attack on the manor, a dozen Death Eaters, maybe more. There's only a couple Order members holding them off -"

"Let's go," Lily says firmly, gripping her wand.

"Here, take this." Marlene extends a golden watch, identical to the one she is wearing, to the redhead. At a quick glance, Lily sees it has twelve hands rather than two, and no numbers at all. "Put this on. It's an identifier. All the Order members have one, and it's how we stay in contact."

She obediently fastens the thing to her wrist, not asking how on earth the thing works. Marlene quickly grabs her elbow, and she is suddenly hit by the nauseating feeling of disappearing into thin air.

--

Sirius looks out the window at the streets of Dublin. He surely could have afforded a less drab place, but he likes it this way. The plain building with plain rooms and plain furniture, surrounded by plain people, is a comforting contrast to his past, miserably luxurious life.

He touches the cool glass of a bottle of Scotch on the windowsill. He doesn't open it. Mourning has been brief and kind to him.

His father is now also dead, but nothing stirs in his heart for the soft old man, with his thick moustache and balding white head. His father means nothing to him.

A watch beeps on the arm of a chair across the room. _Beep! Beep! Beep!_ Since he's not wearing it, he can't hear the soft, musical voice telling him what to do. But it's probably James. The tables have turned, it seems, and now it's Sirius who won't go on the front lines.

"Go away, James," Sirius murmurs, curling up on the sofa and covering his ears to little avail. "I'm not coming. Please, please go away."

Sirius's father would disapprove. He always said, _Sirius, if you are to do anything, dedicate your entire soul to doing it._ This was the only honest conversation Sirius had with either of his parents, except his father never dedicated himself to anything at all. His father was a lazy hypocrite.

_Beep! Beep! Beep!_

Sirius finally crosses the room and latches the watch around his pale wrist, listening with closed eyes.

--

"The manor's a bit north of here," Marlene says, pointing up a gravelly road. They are in the countryside, where Lily can see magic can easily go unnoticed. Trees swallow them up in a valley of green. "We'll have to run. Stay close."

Marlene's lips are tight with grim determination, and her face and knuckles are white.

They run.

Their feet thud against the hard ground as they come within sight of a large, aging mansion. Jets of red and green light cut through the crumbling roof into the starry sky. Flames leap and flicker floutingly in the upper story windows. A body lies in the smoky doorway.

Lily can barely catch her breath, but Marlene pushes forward relentlessly, not even sparing a glance at the body she steps over.

"One more thing," the woman shouts as she casts a Patronus charm. An eagle bursts from the tip of her wand and into the building, silvery and blinding. "Be careful of -" An explosion.

"_What_?" Lily calls back, but the clamor of voices and crashing of furniture fills her ears. Whatever Marlene says is lost in the chaos; the doors fling open and the fight begins.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I meant to have this posted yesterday, but I got sidetracked. I hope it's okay - I stink at writing action scenes, so the next chapter will probably not be great. On the upside, however, there WILL be some development on the Lily/James front. Please review, darlings.


	29. In Which Instinct Takes Over

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter twenty-nine**

The fight doesn't so much _begin_ as it continues, as it becomes clear to Lily that the place is in chaos. Smoke hits her hotly and rushes into her lungs. She charges after Marlene into the entrance hall of the mansion, and immediately, amidst the shaking walls and overturned furniture, they are met with the sight of a stocky, middle-aged man in blue robes. He looks startled, but his eyes light on Marlene and he relaxes just a notch.

"Marlene," he says, wand held mid-air; there is a glint of metal on his wrist. "What's my mum's maiden name?"

This seems a very strange question to ask in the urgency of the moment, but Marlene replies without hesitation. "Hart."

He lowers his wand, looks Lily up and down, then gestures toward a staircase behind him. There are shouts from upstairs. "There's at least twenty. We've lost two blokes, mostly we've got to secure the border - lucky you came when you did -"

Just then, three people come clattering down that same staircase, making them all jump: two slim, masked Death Eaters and an unfamiliar man. The man is reeling from their attacks; they shout at him; they're playing with their food -

"_Expelliarmus!_" Lily cries, disarming one as Marlene attacks the other. A red jet of light hits the Death Eaters' victim; he reels, but doesn't fall. The middle-aged man turns and Stuns the attackers.

"They're all upstairs," the victim grunts as Marlene rushes forward to aid him. "Dumbledore's got the west wing under control, but Fenwick's in the library, he can't leave on account of the fire -"

"Someone has to go get him!"

"I'll go," Lily says immediately, and she sprints past them, over the Death Eaters' stilled bodies, and up the stairs. It's a long flight; she's only vaguely aware of where she's supposed to go.

"_Avada Kedavra -_"

A green light whistles past her ear; instinctively she wheels and throws the first spell she can think of. The Death Eater on the stairs doubles over laughing uncontrollably.

"_Stupefy_!" she shouts, but he manages to dodge it and send back a giggled curse at her.

Lily is hit in the stomach by what could've been an invisible bowling ball, the wind knocked out of her. She stumbles back and the Death Eater takes this opportunity to send a cutting jinx across her skin.

"Holy-!" She bites her tongue painfully and creates a Shield, though the damage is already done; her cheek stings painfully with blood. "_Stupefy - stupefy!_"

"Ha ha, can't reach me, can you, little girl?" he taunts, lifting his wand to throw another, probably deadlier curse.

"_Petrificus totalus!_"

He falls over like a board, paralyzed. Lily sprints past him to the landing, not glancing back. A wave of adrenaline has hit her, violently thrilling. Her blood races, magic coursing through her veins, as if she didn't spend time away from this in the first place.

She is caught in a fork now, a hallway extending to her left and right. The smoke is much thicker up here, because the fire is closer or perhaps because smoke rises, but most definitely enough to make her struggle to catch her breath.

Lily casts a Bubblehead charm, gasping for air, and decides that although she can't determine where the voices and such are coming from, she'll take a right -

She jogs down the hallway, her heart hammering in her chest; somewhere a door squeaks open and closed. But she can't see much, feels eeriely alone. Why does this feel so simple, so...unplanned?

The building itself is like a labrinth, corridors twisting and turning - but that's mostly illusion, since her vision's still smoky -

Lily slows to a cautious stride, wand held out before her. Her eyes water as she tries to scan her surroundings.

_Fenwick's in the library, he can't leave..._

Is this "Fenwick" being guarded by Death Eaters? Are they holding him hostage, or has he already been killed? And why is it that Lily was first to volunteer, that Marlene hesitated that one, uncharacteristic moment? Uncertainty?

"What have I gotten myself into?" Lily mutters, but the sound of her own voice is startlingly wrong. She tenses.

She can see a large room ahead - the library? - and she pads toward it quickly, trying and failing to muffle her footsteps. Hoping beyond hope, too, that her own incompetency will be offset by incompetency on the part of her foes.

Honestly, this is scaring the _shit_ out of her.

And every rustle sounds like _Avada Kedavra_.

She reaches the room - no doors, just an open threshold that reveals a wide but shallow chamber, lined with heavy shelves and chairs lined up as if unused for a while. Even in the grey of the smoky air she can see a layer of dust settled thinly over the red carpet.

In other words, it's completely devoid of life, a revelation perhaps more frightening than finding it full of murderers.

Lily has always hated anticipation. As a child, she used to go zip lining with her father. Leaping off a 100-foot drop with nothing but a rope between her and the ground was no problem. She _liked_ it. No, it was the climb, the slow and agonizing journey to the top before she could jump off. Much safer. Much more frightening.

It always left her shaking.

The journey to the library has been the climb, and having waited so eagerly for the fall, she has no idea what to do now that she realizes the zip line isn't even there.

This is why it's rather good she doesn't expect what happens next.

--

In Chinese culture, jade is meant to bring forth luck. It's the favored stone of pendants, charms, and beads.

It's also green. And as Lily can testify, people have an unnatural proclivity for describing shades of green: She has heard emerald-green, sea-green, toad-green, and grass-green among others, truthfully usually while describing her eyes.

And she's always felt driven to say, _No, they're not emerald. No, they're not jade. They're just green._They don't bring good luck, they don't inspire beautiful pottery, and they're not stone. They are green. Plain, never-changing, blue-ish green.

On the other hand, she has always admired others' eyes - brown has rich reds and yellows and darkness, blue has the clarity of water and the brightness of the sun reflecting off the ocean. Grey, like Sirius's, has the stolidity of a calm lake and the turbulence of a storm cloud.

And hazel - handsome hazel - is a blend of honey-golds and mahogany and even that dreadful greenn, mixed and shifting and dynamic the way her eyes will never be.

So it should be no surprise that Lily recognizes those eyes when they are staring so questioningly into hers.

He has appeared out of nowhere, literally, and he takes her away from the library and through another door and he slams her against a wall as the door swings shut. And he demands, "What are you doing here? What are you doing here?!"

Her mouth opens and closes.

James is pressed up so close, but it's beyond her comprehension as she starts thinking the same thing: _What are you doing here?_

The hazel eyes bore into her.

Lily's adrenaline is suddenly replaced by thrumming relief, and she feels numb. James is here. James can protect her. She doesn't need to fight alone, because James will be with her and he _must_ know what he is doing.

Then Lily fairly shoves him off her, or tries, because she's struck by the idea that maybe, like others she's known, he isn't on the same side. But he struggles back, gripping her wrists and holding her there against the wall.

She panics.

"You're hurting me," she grits out, head spinning. His grip relaxes just a bit.

"What's my nickname for you?" he demands, coughing a little on smoke.

"Llio," she gasps as his fingernails dig into her arm.

"Ask me -"

"What's - what's my best friend's middle name?"

He lets go of her then, backing away. "John," he says.

But she isn't the only person to know that, and she crosses to him, grabbing his left sleeve and yanking it up to the elbow.

No Mark.

A watch.

"Good," she says weakly, her wand clattering to the floor. She moves to embrace him in relief, but he takes her shoulders, pushes her away, and tells her,

"Pick up your wand - what are you doing here?!"

She shows him her own watch. He looks at it in shocked silence. She leans down and retrieves her wand, horrified at having done such a careless thing, then looks back up. He's watching her intently.

"What are you doing in the east wing?" he asks forcefully. "The Death Eaters are gathered in the west wing -"

"I was sent here -"

"By _whom_?" he wants to know, moving his hands to cradle her face. He's trembling.

"Some man from the Order - he said 'Fenwick' was up here, trapped," she explains hesitantly. "And -"

James swears very loudly and she jumps. His voice reverberates against the walls. "You've been lied to - who brought you, where is he?"

"Marlene McKinnon, I dunno -"

"_Marlene_?" He drops his hands from her face, seizes his wand from his pocket. "Then we've got to go, _now_ - something wrong - Marlene may be in danger -"

From a detached point of view, this is amusing. Of _course_ Marlene may be in danger. She's in a mansion chock full of Death Eaters. But this is not a detached point of view, it is anything but amusing, and Lily does not laugh.

Instead her eyes follow James's motions worriedly as he extracts a silvery cloth from his pocket.

"How is she?" she tries to ask. "And why -"

He throws it over them, and she realizes it's a cloak, barely large enough for two if they huddle together. "Why'd you intercept me?" she finishes, panicked.

James looks incredulous. "Because I lo-" A scream echoes from far across the house, and he swears again, wrapping his arm around Lily's waist. "No time. Let's go."

Somehow she's dragged from the room, stumbling hastily after James as her blood resumes pumping through her veins at a wild pace. At that same pace they are rushing down the hallway as he hisses, _hush_, and she is afraid of what will come next.

This is hardly the James she knows. There's a scared expression on his face she's never seen before, and all she can think is, over and over again, _Why?_

_What's going to happen?_

_How does he know what to do?_

A musical voice can be heard chanting in her ears, suddenly, over the din of James's seemingly deafening whispers, the words -

_West wing, west wing. Please!_

It's Marlene's voice.

Somewhere they're back to the landing and James steps over the man she left paralyzed and unconscious, as if he isn't there. Blood trickles from a cut on the Death Eater's forehead perhaps he hit his head on the way down. Lily feels sick.

"Wait -" she tries hopelessly, digging in her heels and taking James's elbow. He stumbles to a stop and the cloak slips a little.

"What are you doing?" he whispers harshly, tugging on her waist.

"I've got to help -"

"You can't, that's idiotic, he doesn't deserve it -"

But Lily can't take her eyes off the man. He's not someone she recognizes; his face is cold and unfamiliar to her. Yet she sees the blunt lines and young tiredness of it and thinks he could very easily be someone else.

A man who loves, a man who laughs, a man who simply took the wrong path when he came to the fork in the road.

James slaps her then, though not as if he means it, and she shakes her head and stops thinking. Thought will only distract her. Thought about the past, about Sirius and his brother, about James and the kiss and the argument. Thought about Marlene in danger or Petunia drifting away or Remus holding her through the lonely night all because she said, _The heating in my hall's broken, you know, and I don't..._

She doesn't, true, she doesn't want to _think_. Thought is gone. Instinct is here.

Instinct means becoming the quick-reacting machine James already is; instinct means adrenaline and fear trickling through her veins; instinct means forgetting, for one moment, someone else she can help, and instead helping herself.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I hope everyone will like this chapter... I was really looking forward to writing it, though any sort of battle scene is really difficult, for me, to write. Anyway, please review and tell me if I did okay. I'd really appreciate it!


	30. In Which Everyone Is Too Young To Die

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter thirty**

The first thing that registers in Lily's mind as she and James sprint into the center of the battle is the fact that she can't keep her feet on the ground.

The mansion, here, has been completely up heaved, and there is a terrible quaking of the earth that she can't place to its source; people are screaming and there is a horde of masked Death Eaters streaming over the floor like a pack of rodents. They are in a large hall, perhaps a dining place for guests. In the center is an enormous fountain shaped like a swan, except the swan has been rudely decapitated. Shattered chandeliers swings dangerously from the ceiling.

"Look out!" James pushes her down as a curse whizzes over her head. Amidst the chaos she can see people she actually _knows_, coupled off and dueling one another.

"That's Marlene!" she screams, pointing across the hall. Sure enough, Marlene is fighting off two Death Eaters - one is tall and dark and masked, the other thick, blond, and strikingly familiar, though she can't place him.

Lily goes to strip away the cloak and come to the assistance of her friend, but James shouts: "No!" He pulls her wrist. The cloak falls off anyway.

"There's more!" A Death Eater can be heard crying, and suddenly she finds herself flying through the air, landing with a sickening thud twenty feet away from where she'd stood. She struggles dizzily to her feet.

"_Descendo_!"

The ceiling cracks and begins to crumble over her, ensuring a plaster-y death, but she shouts, "_Finite_!" and it returns just as quickly to normal.

"_Avada -_"

A Death Eater that she will later recognize as Antonin Dolohov is on her then, sending jets of green light that she is forced to dodge. Somewhere, in her peripheral vision, she sees a flash of black: it is James, thrashing under a Death Eater's spell, and a most horrifying scream erupts from him. Dolohov takes this moment of distraction to send a curse at Lily -

She feels instantly squashed -

_Surrender_

She falls to her knees.

_Forward_

She stumbles forward, her glazed eyes tilted up at James.

_Lift your wand_

"No!" she screams, and her hand which is halfway through raising her wand to aim jerks suddenly as she throws the curse off her. She gasps for breath, turns to Dolohov -

"_Duro_!" she screams instead, directing her wand to the great, beautiful fountain in the center of the room. A spray of water rains down instead as a stream of small boulders, which the man throws off with a Shield charm.

"Gideon!"

She turns and sees Gideon Prewett fighting at least four people at once, Dolohov joining the fray; somewhere a woman screams, something descends on her, and she is doused in blackness.

--

The aftermath is eeriely quiet.

For James, battles pass in a blur, nothing really vivid in his memory like one would expect; when he closes his eyes he can imagine the horrible things that have happened. But with eyes open, he cannot. His mind remains silent.

Later someone will explain to him, maybe Dumbledore, how the backup Order members were so easily diverted from the actual fight - by trusted allies under the Imperius.

But for now he is numb and uninformed, lying here in this makeshift little hospital at headquarters. Marlene is in the bed across from him, pale and silent and deathly. Fabian is next to her. She doesn't look at him, won't see him. Can't see him.

And then Lily comes in, and all the blurred memories of the battle come rushing back with awesome clarity, small glimmering instances of adrenaline and fight and flight.

At seeing her exhausted face, he is pummelled with shame. Shame, guilt, mostly shame. All expressed on her face just as well as his.

"Are they asleep?" she whispers, coming to his bedside. He shakes his head mutely, so she looks over her shoulder. Her eyes are red. "Okay."

He tries to sit up, knowing she won't really protest because the last thing she wants to do is disturb the others. He feels dizzy. She touches his hair.

"James."

"I'm fine," he responds angrily, and she draws back. It's too easy, he thinks, to make her draw back.

Tranquil silence is only a faint memory as tension fills the air. He says, "I want to get out of here," and swings his legs to the floor, pushing himself out of bed.

"James."

"I'm getting out of here," he says forcefully, and he limps to the door like a proud, dying animal. "Where's my wand?"

Lily is silent.

"Where's my bleeding wand?"

"Broken," she says, and he gives a frustrated sigh. It's not a surprise his wand is broken, but more of a surprise that he didn't remember. He feels hindered, somehow, incomplete - an artist without a paintbrush.

And Lily still doesn't say much, which he finds maddening. There's been nothing but quiet since getting back, and it's irking him badly: He wants to set things on fire, he wants to kiss Lily again, he wants to make such a ruckus as they'll never forget.

But all he can do is drag himself out of the room with that same guilt and shame that has been plaguing him.

"Please don't," Lily protests, following him. "Please, we don't have a Healer right now. Don't make it any worse -"

"I'm under the impression that _you're_ the resident Healer now," he replies as he heads slowly down the hallway. The stairs are at the end, past several doors. He's never actually been on the upper level of the Prewetts' home, but something tells him it's not as far to the landing as it feels, that he shouldn't normally be so winded.

Lily grabs his arm, causing him to stumble in his determined gait. "Yes, I am, and seeing as how I'm incredibly under-qualified, I'd prefer you to go and lie down."

He smiles wryly. At least she hadn't remained silent.

The silence was driving him mad.

"Where's everyone else?" he asked instead.

"Where do you think?" she says shakily. "The Weasleys are trying to cope, and of course the Prewetts have been contacted...they'll want us to leave, then, I think..."

"You've never met the Prewetts, then," he replies. Gideon, Fabian, and Molly's parents would be positively horrified at the suggestion. They'd give anything for the cause, including...

...his blood runs cold, and he tries his hardest not to think about it, but the images come to mind anyway.

_A smashed window._

He swallows and clumsily pulls Lily's fingers from his arm.

_Shards of glass._

Suddenly he cannot breathe.

_Bloodshot eyes._

That is what love will do to you.

And it's all he can do not to collapse on Lily then and there, because even worse, more vivid, violent memories spring upon him, and suddenly he feels like clawing his eyes out too. If only someone saw this coming, if only he renounced this life and led one far, far away from this terrible conflict.

Lily steadies him - he thinks it's all written on his face. Something definitely flits across hers, but he can't read it.

She helps him downstairs quietly - so quietly that there is a strange, noiseless ringing in his ears, and he feels as if it would take all the music in the world to fill him up again.

Unfortunately there is no music, but there are other things, such as the chirping of crickets (he realizes vaguely that it is morning outside), the creak of floorboards (as she leads him across the main room), and the _ahem_ of his best friend, who is sitting and waiting at the table. James finally collapses.

Collapses emotionally, that is, so that by the time he's done crying silently - a private minute that no one will speak of - he can only ask, "So where is he?"

"Molly's making arrangements," Sirius says tonelessly. "How is -?"

"Not good," Lily cuts in with significant force. James, sitting, knows this has built up on her, too. Guilt is heavy in the air. But _Sirius_ looks too worried, too guilty, and something odd happens.

A pang of suspicion hits James, and then it is gone before he can figure out why.

"Can I have a word?" Sirius asks of Lily, and with another fleeting beat of jealously James watches the pair of them go.

He thinks, _They had a word just a day ago._

Because it has been a day, and again that overwhelming quietness envelops him. He is alone.

--

Sirius's grasp is much too rough as he pulls Lily out under the lean-to. Ironically, it's a warm day, and birds are singing - with a pang, Lily realizes it's almost spring - but the young man's expression is dark and smouldering.

For a moment there is quiet as she looks up at him, unafraid. That's what she enjoys about Sirius; she isn't afraid of losing him the way she's afraid of losing James. He's her outlet, her way to be the side of herself that other people can't handle.

Sirius releases a long sigh and says, "Tell me what the situation is."

She knows he wants the truth, but she doesn't know if she has the heart to give it to him. "I..."

"_Please_," he presses.

Lily takes a deep breath. "I don't know if it'll ever come back. Her sight, I mean. She and Gideon were the only members with an ounce of medical knowledge, so..."

"So we're pretty hard hit," he says evenly. "Is that your professional opinion?"

"I'm not a professional."

"Is that your own opinion?" he asks, touching her hands which hung at her sides. She entwines their fingers, looking at this connection as if it can bring either of them comfort. He just looks at her.

"My real opinion," she says very softly, "is that Gideon was much too young to die."

Sirius tightens his grip. "This is my fault," he replies bitterly.

"It can't be. You weren't there."

"Exactly," he says. "Exactly."

There is a long silence before he drops her hands and looks away, heaving a great sigh. The emotion on his face is there, clearly there, but indecipherable to Lily. She tries to say, "Dying...it's something we all will go through, Sirius..."

"But dying _for_something," he responds forcefully, "that's something only some people will ever do." A pause. "Maybe I should've been in Slytherin, after all."

She doesn't say anything.

"My - my father used to say -" he swallowed hard and drew his brows together "- if you're to do anything, you should dedicate your entire soul to it. He said, 'Love fiercely, worship faithfully, and fight until the very end for what you believe in.'"

"That's beautiful," Lily answers truthfully.

"He did none of those things." Sirius clears his throat. "I guess I'm a hypocrite, just like him."

She doesn't have a response to this; she instead leans against the wall and looks out past the tin roof of the lean-to, murmuring, "Do you think he knew? That it was going to happen?'

Sirius is quiet for a moment. "He was outnumbered by five Death Eaters," he finally replies. "He must've known."

"I saw him...before he...I could've stopped Dolohov..."

"Then someone else would've got to him instead."

The lean-to is cramped and the sun a little too warm now, and she distinctly feels as if she may cry. Sirius takes her hand gently and leads her to the door.

"There are other things we have to worry about," he tells her slowly. "No matter how guilty we feel."

And it strikes Lily as odd that he should say this, because she can see that if anyone feels guilt for Gideon's death, or Marlene's...accident, or anything else, it's him.

He'd never admit it, but she can see that it kills him to see what is happening. It kills him to know Marlene wanted Gideon after all.

She puts this aside, if only for a moment, when James sees them come in and he is standing by the doorway, face pale and breathing labored.

"James?" Sirius asks, dropping Lily's hand as he reaches toward his friend. "You okay, mate?"

"Don't," the man replies, flinching. With a shock Lily realizes there is a mahogany stain creeping across his pant leg. "Lily?"

"_James_," she says, going to him. He steadies himself on her shoulder as she rolls up his pant leg and peels back a soaked bandage. "Oh, God, I thought it'd stopped -"

Sirius is staring. "How long have you been -?" he starts in a panicked tone.

"Just a couple of minutes," James replies weakly. He sways.

"Sit down," Lily orders, and he is ushered to the kitchen where a long wooden bench becomes an improvised work table. "Send a Patronus to Pomfrey," she tells Sirius. "Blood-replenishing potion."

She re-wraps the wound quickly, murmuring a few spells to slow the blood flow. It's a magically-induced gash about the length of her thumb and wide, too, that extends across the side of his knee. Lily is much too under-qualified to diagnose the problem, much less try and remedy it, so she says, "Apply pressure. We'll have to wait until someone comes."

But no one's coming. They're all too busy burying a loved one.

James is breathing hard, mostly from panic - he's not in immediate danger, but any more blood loss could be risky, not to mention the possible hidden magical effects. So Lily remains at his side, trying to calm him, hoping and wishing and hoping a little bit more.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Ah...and we hit the meat of the angst. I'd love some reviews, by the way. :D Tell me whether or not I completely failed the battle scene. If you're confused about something,let me know; hopefully the next chapter will clear it up.

Up next: Lily talks to Dumbledore, James has a breakdown, and Sirius gets something off his chest.


	31. In Which There Are Questions

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter thirty-one**

"My apologies," the old man says, true regret and concern in his eyes, "but it is impossible to seek help at a Wizarding hospital. To legitimately enter so many inter-connected people for spell damage may arouse suspicion - it would be, as you must know, equivalent to handing Voldemort a list of Order members to murder in their sleep."

"Can't we forge documents?" Lily asks desperately, digging her fists into her unfamiliar robes. "Surely _you_ could do it."

"Surely I could," Dumbledore relents with a sigh, "but for now, I think, it is not worth it to take the risk."

"Marlene will be blind," she says weakly.

The elderly wizard folds his hands on the table in front of him, seriously contemplating this plea. "Miss McKinnon, perhaps, can be admitted," he muses. "Her injuries are thoroughly non-magical, yes?"

"Yes."

"Then have someone escort her to St. Mungo's in London," Dumbledore says decisively. "Mr. Black, perhaps, or Mundungus. The others, I fear, will have to make do."

She nods quickly. "Thank you...I..."

"If necessary," he adds, "I can ask Madame Pomfrey to look at Mr. Prewett - ah - Fabian. It would be unwise, however, to divert her attentions from the school for more than a day, considering the circumstances."

"Yes, sir," Lily responds, trying not to think that Fabian does, in fact, need the most medical attention. The Prewett family has already been through so much. "Of course Hogwarts should be a priority."

"Speaking of which," Dumbledore continues amicably, "when do you and Mr. Potter intend to return to Cardiff?"

She flounders. "C-Cardiff?"

"Yes. It is quite useful, I must admit, to have a few wizards stationed in every major city across Britain. Surely you will -?"

"Ah," Lily stammers, incredulous. He is offering her an escape. A chance to leave, to return to the safety of the university without abandoning the Order. "I'll - I'll have to speak with James, sir. We weren't really on good terms, before, erm, before the battle."

"I see." Dumbledore adjusts his spectacles, looking thoughtful. "Be sure to consider it...thoroughly."

Nonplussed, she nods.

"Perhaps you want to return to your patients now?" he suggests.

"Perhaps so," she agrees.

It's only after she leaves the room that she wonders if she should've pushed for more, if she should've pointed out that they all need to heal emotionally as well as physically. Lily hasn't slept these past two nights, and surely the others, who have served more time and encountered more danger, have it worse.

After all, Sirius is on the cusp of a breakdown, this is easy enough to see, and he wasn't even _there_.

Perhaps the most infuriating part is that for all they fought, for all the sacrifices they made, at the end of the day two of three Macmillans are dead, the other one hospitalized and too afraid to do a darned thing about Muggle affairs _now_.

Lily hesitates outside the makeshift hospital room. She doesn't want to go in. In fact, the last thing she wants to see is any of the people in that room: James, Fabian, or...

...or Marlene...

Marlene is blind now, at least temporarily, and Lily has no desire to see a friend who would do that to herself. It seems cold, but it's too hard to deal with - Lily cannot explain to one of her closest friends that life is cruel. She cannot say why Gideon died, or whether it will ever get easier to accept, or why God seems to hate Marlene. In all honesty, it is neither God's nor Fabian's fault that Gideon has a twin, that it is so easy to open one's eyes and see a living reminder of what has been lost.

Fabian is really the one who should be fading away - every time he looks in the mirror.

So Lily doesn't go into the room, but doesn't turn back, either. Thoughts of her service to the Order pile up in her head. She closes her eyes and leans heavily against the wall, breathing in deeply, trying not to think anymore.

The door creaks, and her eyes flutter open again. "Ja -?"

James drags himself through the doorway, limping laboriously to where she is. "I can't fucking take this," he says while sliding down the wall to sit beside her. There is quiet - he doesn't look at her.

Lily takes him in: his dark eyes, the tired tilt of his shoulders, his chest moving out and in as he breathes a little too quickly. A thousand thoughts are swirling around her mind.

"What's the verdict?" he asks hoarsely. She shrugs, trying to clear her head.

"We're sending Marlene to Mungo's. You and Fabian..."

He nods slowly, his fingers dancing over his injured knee.

She looks at this and asks, "Does it hurt?"

"No. It's just stiff. And any motion that isn't gentle sets it off bleeding."

She bites her lip and doesn't know what to say. There's more silence and James stiffens - his voice is strangely nervous as he says, "Please keep talking, Lily, please -"

But they're plaguing her, her thoughts, and she can't possibly know how it's plaguing him - a shattered window, broken glass, bloodshot eyes - and he looks increasingly anxious to fill the silence.

He blurts out, "I've killed someone."

Lily looks into James's eyes and sees an unfamiliar light - brilliantly greedy, shining with panic and jealousy and a whole range of other emotions she cannot place.

She wants to vomit.

"I've killed someone," he continues, "in the first Order mission I ever went on. Some supporter, not even in with Voldemort, just a civilian. But God, I remember looking down and seeing blood -"

"Stop," she says forcefully, but James can't stop for anything. His confession keeps pouring from his mouth and stirring the heavy quiet around them.

"D'you think I'm a murderer, Lily? Am I just as sick as them, if I could've done that? I keep having dreams that I've killed people in the Order. I've even killed you -"

"_Stop_ it," she repeats, snatching his fingers and squeezing them tightly. He finally falls short, but that look is still in his eyes, and it sickens her.

"You're not a murderer, James," she says softly. "Murderers don't regret."

"I don't regret," he tells her.

Lily closes her eyes. "If you didn't you wouldn't have told me this. You wouldn't have spoken at all."

"I can't take the quiet anymore," he pleads, but she's already got an answer.

She squeezes his fingers again, saying, "Murderers like the quiet."

--

Sirius likes the quiet.

There's the eerie sense that God is watching him as he sits cross-legged at Gideon's grave on the green English hill. The sun is out, but no other visitors are in the cemetery today, something he is glad for. He doesn't want to be seen talking to a tombstone.

The funeral was a terrible ordeal. Most of the Order members were barred from going, as they didn't "officially" know Gideon - that is, outside of the secret group.

Sirius showed up as a dog.

Marlene, understandably, did not attend.

Now Sirius kneels at the slab of marble laid into the earth, and he murmurs, "She loved you, you know."

The secret he was never, ever meant to tell.

The grave didn't respond.

"She was mad about you," he continues, pressing a palm against the cool stone, "but she couldn't be with you. Why's that?"

Still no response, and Sirius sighs, sitting back. Question that will never be answer still nag him, and beneath it all there is a sense a horrible guilt thrumming on his chest, moving in his lungs, the guilt of knowing _he_ is the reason those questions remain mysteries.

It was hard to pull a curtain around Fabian's practically comatose body, so Marlene wouldn't have to see him again if she could. It was harder trying to explain, when Fabian did come around, how she plunged her hand through a window and seized a shard of glass, all because she saw that ghostly familiar face.

How she...

Something is wrong, though, because despite all the hardship, Sirius remains steadfast, like years of shame and loss and loneliness have weathered him until he is numb and cannot be sad.

"She never even compared me to you," Sirius commented to the tombstone, feeling as if now, perhaps, he could stop being so stolid. He could get things off his chest. "Was never a bit interested in me. That's not why you hated me, though, right?"

Of course it isn't.

He is silent as he contemplates all the possible reasons. One stands out to him - he's a Black, and there's never been a better reason to hate someone than that.

After all, he's always been hated. He was the lesser son - and then, the son that didn't exist, that broke his mother's heart. Never dark enough for one side, never light enough for the other.

Treated like he'd never been born.

Which is a perfectly acceptable idea to Sirius, at this point.

At this very moment the Prewetts are packing for America, out of reach of the war. They've suffered too much. But Fabian will stay. He's chosen. He cannot leave as long as his brother is buried in English soil.

What Sirius knows it that also at this very moment, James and Lily are preparing to go back to Cardiff. But he - Sirius - won't set foot on that campus again - not now, when he has a place to live and debts to pay.

Life debts.

"Sirius?"

He's startled by the child's voice. He doesn't have to look around to know it's Charlie Weasley. Sirius rises from beside the grave and turns to smile grimly down at the seven year-old. "Hey, Charlie. Why aren't you inside?"

"I walked here," the boy says, wiggling his bare toes in the grass. "Is Uncle Gid in there?"

Sirius sighs and runs his hand through his hair in a very James-like manner. "Yes, he is," he opts to say.

"Oh." Charlie nibbles his fingernail, unconcerned. "Well, I hope he's comfortable."

"So do I."

"Did you an' Uncle Gid fight each other?" the boys wants to know.

Sirius shakes his head. "I would've defended him until the very end."

That's exactly what he didn't do, though. _You didn't even fight, you bloody liar._

"Why?"

Poor Sirius doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, so he chooses to rumple Charlie's hair and tell him, "He was a better man than I'll ever be."

And that much, at least, is true.

He ends up walking the young Weasley home without much conversation or interest at all, until they are perhaps a hundred yards away - when the child says, "My mum says we're moving soon. She an' Dad got a big house so there'll be room for me an' Bill an' Percy and our new brothers, when they come."

"I see," Sirius says patiently.

"I'm gonna have my own room."

He sticks his hands in his pockets and tries to swallow. His throat is dry. "That's great."

"Bill says you helped buy it," Charlie continues.

"I suppose I did."

The boy looks up at him with honest eyes only a child could have, and says quite frankly, "Thank you for our new house."

Sirius's heart skips a beat. His breath catches in his throat as he looks down and manages to reply, "You're welcome."

"Did you ever have your own room?"

"Mm-hmm."

And then they go inside the cottage, which is suddenly much emptier than he'd really like it to be. But he doesn't mind. He just wants to be here, in the quiet.

* * *

**Author's Note:** If you review, I'll love you forever and ever. Plus, if you have any critique or suggestions, that will make the next chapter even better!


	32. In Which We Are Utterly Alone

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter thirty-two**

The little foreign car, black and sleek with shaded windows, bounces down the road at least twenty units over the speed limit. When it pulls recklessly into the parking lot, students dash out of the way, clutching their backpacks and mumbling not-so-polite comments under their breath.

The door open.

James Potter is back.

To the outsider's eye, he is right as rain; in fact, there's an unexpected swagger in his step, confidence exudes from his cool expression. A long time ago, he was the quiet student with the amusing dog, but now he seems different - changed.

But to Lily - who bobbles out of the sedan after him, awkwardly thanking the driver - he's changed not for the better. That swagger is a limp that may not go away. That confidence is the iciness of a man who has taken a life and never wants to get close enough to a human being to do it again.

For a moment, there really is silence, and Lily is desperately afraid he'll snap again. To keep it away, she says, "Well - it's good to be back."

"Yes. Good," he murmurs.

"I suppose we'll have a lot of catching-up to do in our classes," she tries to continue. She falters. He fixes an eye on her.

"Look," he replies flatly, any semblance of the old James gone, "We know it doesn't matter if we pass our classes, or if we even go. We just have to keep modifying memories as long as we can to stay here."

She swallows. "James..."

"We're here for the Order now," he adds. "Merit's worth shit."

She manages to say, "I suppose." She hesitates to point out how eager he'd been about schooling when they first met, and she wonders if that was all a farce, an attempted disguise to seem "more Muggle".

It occurs to her that she knows next to nothing about James. Does she care? A bit.

But the main worry in Lily's mind is how he will fare without her, when no one will know how much he's suffered, when no one is around to keep talking and fill his ears.

He seems to answer this for her when he looks at her, and, for a brief second, his expression softens. "I'll be fine," he says after some hesitation. "I'm not Marlene."

That's all he can say before he turns and starts the brisk walk to his flat. She's left behind. Uninvited to join him.

She bites her lip.

After a moment's uncertainty, she heads back to _her_ dorm, marvelling at the enormity of Cardiff; over the past few weeks, she has known only the hustle and bustle of headquarters. Until it emptied - the Prewetts on a much-needed vacation; the Weasleys into their new home, a charming structure Arthur affectionately dubbed "the Burrow"; Sirius, who spontaneously vanished a few days before. He cited "a busy lifestyle." Somehow, Lily doubts it.

She makes it back to her room in time, trembling, and lies down. Her head is spinning. Too many thoughts plague her, a lifetime's worth of worries having been packed into a few short weeks.

She can remember how then - a time that seems so long ago - she was worried about a mere kiss; the matter seems trivial when she's now preoccupied with James's _current_ state of mind. He's not okay.

And Sirius - he's missing altogether.

--

James watches rugby on the television. He makes scrambled eggs. He doesn't know what day it is, but he doesn't really care.

The man's quite aware he's not the same, of course - Remus having given him a wide berth, the fact that he hasn't attended class all week, his general...jitters.

Well, he's not really sure what it is.

"I'm an idiot," James says, switching off the stove and leaving the eggs untouched.

Whatever.

Some magnetic pull draws him to the window, looking at the now-rising sun and the rare, clear sky. It's 6:30 AM. Suddenly it's driving him crazy that he doesn't know the date.

An anxiety in his chest that he can't place, he slips on his shoes - tying them tightly - and pulls on the old cap he hasn't worn since - since before he kissed...

He shakes his head. _Since the New Year._

He steps outside and is bowled over by the vivid day - the salty air, floating in off the sea, is overpowering. It's as if everything Cardiff has to offer is suddenly obvious: the cooing of birds, the hiss of the wind, the purr of automobiles prowling the streets.

_Where did the silence go?_

He likes it much better this way.

--

Today is Lily's birthday.

She sits on the bench - her father's bench - and stares at an earthworm as it inches slowly along the cobblestone. She feels sorry for it, but how oblivious it is to the rest of the world... maybe ignorance really is bliss.

She is now nineteen years old, and she doesn't feel a bit different. Rather, it's the people around her that seem to be changing - Marlene, grief-stricken and suicidal; James, cold and aloof; Remus, nowhere to be found.

"Happy birthday to me," she sings softly, wanting nothing more than to go home, pull the covers over her head, and pretend everything's alright; but there's no escaping this war, for whatever reason. It follows her, like a web she is too tangled in to leave behind, a big picture she is too tiny to comprehend.

By her feet, the worm gives up and lies still.

She is, truthfully, dwelling on something else - a little detail in her big picture -

- the kiss.

James had said: "Nothing." It meant nothing.

But how could it have meant nothing to look into her eyes and kiss her? To pale when he saw her, to hesitate to talk?

She thinks back to Marlene's story, how Gideon had very gently cradled her face in his hands and told her he loved her, would she please love him back? and Lily wonders if this is at all the same.

She rises from her seat then stoops to tie her shoe before leaving. The worm on the ground has resumed its struggle.

--

Sirius is screwed-up.

He's always known it, let that knowledge linger in the back of his mind, but now he has a hard time pushing it down as he levels his gaze at himself in the mirror. His eyes are bloodshot, his clothes rumpled and dirty, his face unshaven. And he looks unbearably old, not 18, but a person he can barely recognize. Worn and exhausted.

Grabbing a hold of his tousled hair and pulling, hard, Sirius blinks throug the headache pounding at his temples and says, "You bloody bastard."

Sirius in the mirror barely moves his lips.

"Why'd you let them do this to you?" he slurs at his reflection. He shoves a hand against the mirror, hoping to crack it, but his palm makes cold contact and all it does is frighten him. He sways in his spot. "Why'd you let them take you over?"

There's no response.

Words echo in his ears. _It's not your fault, it's not at all._

"Shut the hell up," he says angrily. _It's not your fault, it's not at all._ Why must he have the Black family eyes? It would be so much easier, it seems, without those cloudy grey eyes.

_Everything_ is making it harder and harder to forget - not just the eyes, but the skin. The smile. The blood running through his veins. "Why do I have to look so much like you?" he asks the reflection desperately, hiccupping.

Regulus in the mirror is crying. Sirius can't figure out why. His palms press stickily against the glass, and he wants nothing more than to go through, be on the other side where everything is different. Where his family is alive and loves him.

_It's not your fault, it's not at all._

"What does that mean?" Sirius asks. "What the hell does that mean?"

His vision shimmers, and the last thing he sees is a warped Regulus in the mirror, stumbling.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I know this chapter isn't the longest or most exciting, but it's quite necessary to the development of the story. (By the way, I have writer's block right now and it was absolutely miserable trying to edit this.) Please review... please...


	33. In Which The Tide Turns

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter thirty-three**

_January 30, 1979_

_6:12 AM_

Somewhere in St. Mungo's hospital in London, Marlene McKinnon wakes up.

She's used to it by now, the feel of unfamiliar sheets and a metal bar to keep her from falling out of bed. She's unashamed when the nurses come to bathe her or when a Healer stops to change her bandages.

But hte one thing Marlene's still unaccustomed to is the smell, a nauseating mixture of piss and oatmeal that reminds her of dying people. No matter how hard staff try to cover it up, the scent of a hospital is undeniable. She hopes she doesn't die her.

She can see now, and that's the truth, and she doesn't need help getting around or taking care of herself. But there are still the crippling headaches that the Healers can't understand. There're still lapses, occasionally, into nightmaric flashbacks of the past six years. The fighting.

As Gideon said, _Recruit 'em young, use 'em up._

Marlene is used up. Her body's weary, her mind is weary.

She's almost finished.

--

_6:50 AM_

One moment Marlene is reading _Witch Weekly_ - straining her still-damaged eyes - and the next she finds herself hugging her bedside table as she's flung to the floor, rocked by an unearthly quake, an explosion of magic. Screams and shattering glass reverberate from downstairs, and she recalls that she was very recently thinking she doesn't want to die here.

"Bloody ironic," she mutters, tugging on the hem of her hospital gown and seizing her wand out of the bedside table. She's almost thrown to the ground again as another quake ripples throughout the building.

Marlene sticks her head out the window. The Dark Mark hangs lazily in the air, staring at her with empty skull eyes.

--

_7:05 AM_

Remus has always been poor.

His father owned a struggling business, and the Lupin family's economic situation had its ups and downs - but after Remus's "accident", they were plagued by medical bills and prejudice.

Perhaps that's why he likes Cardiff so much. He has a job now, jerking soda at the drugstore. He's getting an education (albeit an odd one). And for the first time in his life, people are treating him like anyone else.

And yet he can never bring himself to leave the magical world behind, because magic is in his blood. It's a privilege, one he should be grateful for, something he realizes the value of even more clearly after he speaks to Lily's roommate.

Elle Goldeir is a Squib, twenty years old, and the focus of many an odd story from Lily, but when Remus bumps into her at the university bookstore, he feels completely unprepared.

She's wearing a Day-Glo orange T-shirt and exercise pants, and she has the oddest expression on her face, one that's almost expectant and yet curiously confused.

"Oh, hello, Remus," she says brightly, before he even remembers who she is. She reaches forward and shakes his free hand - there's a paper cup of coffee in the other. "I'm Elle. Lily's roommate. Bit early, eh? I'd ask what you're up so early for, but it's a bit obvious, right?"

He blinks and glances around, flustered. If she hadn't addressed him by name he'd be sure she mistook him for someone else, because he's never talked to this girl in his life.

She blinks at him patiently.

"Oh - yeah," he blurts, realizing she actually wants him to reply. "Erm - coffee..."

"Not a morning person?"

"Not particularly," he mumbles, thinking of all the early mornings he has spent roaming the forest - nothing of his own free will. Not exactly a pleasant experience, either, as he often awoke to find he'd eaten some small animal or bitten and scratched himself instead.

"I saw James Potter going out for a stroll not half an hour ago," she adds. "And, as a matter of fact, Lily was in the courtyard - I wonder if they're meeting up?"

"I - ah..."

"Yes, _well_," Elle says cheerfully, without waiting for a response. She loops her arm through his. "I'm quite glad we met, because we have quite a lot to talk about, don't we?"

Surprised, Remus lets her lead the way.

--

_7:15 AM_

"Why didn't you tell Lily you're a Squib?

"Well," Elle says, gripping Remus's arm; she looks around. "If _we_ can have two people - well, three, if you count me - here, then who knows how many the other side's got?"

"The other side?" Remus repeats. Something clicks. "Blimey, you're - you're part of the opposition, aren't you? The one Lily- ?"

"Quieter," she warns, and he immediately lowers his voice.

"You're one of them?"

She nods. "Cardiff's not exactly a high point of interest. Rather - Lily and James are."

Remus fumbles with this idea for awhile. What is that supposed to mean? Lily, a high point of interest?

Something suddenly comes to mind.

"You put them here," he accuses. "This whole thing - was it planned?"

Elle lets go of his arm and shrugs. "I don't know."

"How can you not know?"

"Well, nobody tells _me_ these things. I'm just around to keep an eye on them. You were quite unexpected, though - Sirius not so much, he's rather predictable - but it's all the same, the more people around them, the better."

"Sirius -? Wait, why?"

"It's safer. Dunno. Whatever it is," Elle says quite matter-of-factly, "Dumbledore's being very careful about it. He was _furious_ that Lily and James went on a mission -" she drops off. "Er... I probably shouldn't have said that."

Remus is silent, thinking this over.

"Well?"

He takes a breath. "I guess," he says slowly, "I want to know - why're you telling me?"

Elle leans forward. "You're invaluable, Remus. We want your help."

--

_7:30 AM_

Remus needs time to think about what he's learned. He walks slowly back to the apartment, turning Elle's words over and over in his mind.

_You're not an ordinary recruit, Remus. You're an asset. You could help end this war._

The war has been building momentum for almost fifteen years. How plausible is it that he, a nominal wizard of average intelligence, average experiene, and average ability could turn the tide?

He arrives at the apartment and notes that there's no dog outside - there hasn't been for weeks. Blackie's probably crawled off and died somewhere, he figures, not that he cares. There's no James, either, which is equally unsurprising. On the windowsill, however, is a small golden-yellow owl with a letter in its beak.

"Who're you?" he asks wearily, taking the letter. The bird clacks its beak and takes off, clearly not requiring a reply. Remus turns the envelope over. It's addressed to him in smooth, careful handwriting. His brow draws together. He slids an index finger beneath the flap, breaking the nondescript seal -

A shock rolls through his body. He crumples to the ground.

"Hey, what's wrong with that guy?"

He convulses, electricity rippling up his spine.

"Oi, mate, you okay?!"

Remus gasps and writhes. "Help -" he chokes out, dropping the envelope. Blue and yellow lights ebb before his eyes.

"Someone call an ambulance!"

The letter falls open, black words spelling out -

_Good-bye._

--

_11:10 AM_

"You stupid bleeding idiot. Do you have any idea how long I've been looking for you?"

Sirius doesn't open his eyes.

"We're in the middle of a crisis situation. I have enough to worry about without you wasted half the time..."

He really wishes the voice would go away. It trickles into his ears and threatens to provoke the headache which has just finally gone away. But whoever it is keeps talking, and eventually Sirius cracks one eye open.

"Kill me now," he mutters.

"I'm bloody well thinking about it," the voice says, and without further ado Sirius is hauled to his feet, blinking and gasping like a new baby. The hand gripping his collar lets go long enough to drape a newspaper over the mirror and then steadies him once more.

"What are you doing here, Peter?" he grunts, rubbing his eyes and watching starbursts of pink and blue under his lids.

The blond man raises an eyebrow. "I'm one of your best mates," he says, ticking off a finger. "I was told to come get you. _You moved to Ireland and didn't tell me._ Sometimes I think you're hopeless, you know that?"

"I _am_ hopeless."

"I didn't mean that. What in the world happened to you?"

Sirius looks at himself and for the first time notices the scarlet stains all down his front. "Er."

"That had better be wine," Peters says.

He swallows. "It is. I think."

Peter - a fair, heavy-set man of nineteen - certainly _is_ one of his best friends, but he's not the person Sirius wants to see right now. In fact, he doesn't really want to see _anyone_ right now.

"Who sent you?" he manages to ask.

"Prongs," Peter replies, moving to the closet. He rifles through it quickles, tossing some clean clothes at the other man. "You look like crap. Shower and change; we're going somewhere."

"I don't want to," Sirius mutters half-heartedly. But when it comes to Peter, protesting is truly a lost cause. The man's too used to cleaning up after his friend to take "no" for an answer.

A few minutes later Sirius emerges from the bathroom, considerably more awake, an cleaner, but still sporting a stubbly beard. The only other sign of hangover is the blue half-circles under his eyes.

"You look like you haven't slept for a week," Peter points out.

"I'm not James."

"We'll see. He was in a pretty bad state when I saw him."

"He can go screw himself."

Peter doesn't laugh. He hands Sirius a jacket, he takes his elbow, and they vanish.

--

_11:35 AM_

"That's digusting," Peter comments as he watches his friend shovel food into his mouth. "I'm surprised we haven't been kicked out of the restaurant yet."

"Shut up, you wanker," Sirius growls through a moutful of pad thai. Several nearby diners look mildly alarmed. "I haven't eaten in days."

Peter shrugs and rests his elbows on the table. "You should be groveling at my feet."

"What, for over-analyzing when James mentioned in passing that he hadn't heard from me? No one asked you to come looking for me. Had it occurred to you that maybe I just don't want to talk to him right now?"

"Did you and he fight?"

"No," Sirius mumbles angrily, digging into his meal.

This quiet, dimly-lit restaurant in Muggle Dublin is exactly what Sirius needs, and though he won't admit it, he admires Peter's thoughtfulness.

After all, his friend's hunch was right - Sirius can only vaguely recall the night before - the alcohol, mostly, which is a problem Sirius has avoided since his seventh year in school. The whiskey bottles, the...

Well, the everything. It's nothing new to Peter.

As if reading his thoughts, his friend snatches the fork from Sirius's hand and interrupts. "Hey. Padfoot. Look at me."

His eyes slide into focus and his gaze settles on Peter.

"Why the dickens do you even have a mirror in your place when you know you see things in them?"

He suddenly feels cold all over. "I'm not the same person I was before, Pete."

He corrects himself: "Wormtail."

"You're sure not," Peter scoffs. "None of us are."

"I mean it," Sirius insists, and he even sits up a little straighter as if to illustrate how very reformed he is. Peter doesn't buy it.

"I thought you might be in trouble, but I didn't expect hallucination," the blond man says flatly. "I can't keep covering for you. Has it ever occurred to you that you might need to tell someone?"

"Hallucination isn't the problem here," Sirius tries to say. "Lots of people hallucinate when they're drunk."

"Get rid of the mirror."

Sirius scowls. "I don't need to. It's not coming _back_, Peter, okay? It's not."

Peter doesn't say anything more, just gives him a very disbelieving look and hands back his fork. Sirius catches his reflection in the silver.

He still has those eyes.

--

_12:15 PM_

He's pacing back and forth. He can't stand to be near people right now - that much is obvious - yet here he is, looking anxiously at the grey dormitory door and debating whether to knock.

James reaches forward and brushes the doorknob with his fingertips.

_Why am I doing this?_ he wonders wildly. Because he's wondering where Remus is? Because he's alone and scared without Sirius? Because deep down, he really just wants to talk to her?

Before he can answer his own question, the door opens and a redheaded girl of nineteen is looking bemusedly out at him.

_Oh_, he remembers. Because he's in love.

"James?"

It's not exactly a conclusion at which he wanted to arrive.

"What're you doing here?" Lily asks politely, but something akin to confusion shifts to fear on her face, and he blinks. "Has something happened?"

"Erm, no," he says very quickly. She seems to relax. "I...just..."

Lily waits, but he can't find the words to finish. Finally she ventures, "Are you alright?"

James swallows thickly. "I'm coping," he mumbles, tugging helplessly on a lock of his hair. "Erm... how are you?"

"I'm...alright," she says slowly. "Been better."

He shifts his weight anxiously. "Yeah."

There's another lengthy silence in which they just look at each other. There's something different about looking at her now. Before the mission, she was the girl - the _Muggle_ girl - he could love from afar but never, ever be with. But now James can see a whole other side, a part of Lily he never knew about, a Lily with whom he can imagine a new set of possibilities. Potential for something else. Something more significant.

Something clicks in him, then.

"Can we talk?" he says hesitantly.

_Now or never,_ he thinks.

She looks at him, and some understanding seems to pass between them. "Yeah," she answers. "We can talk."

--

_12:20 PM_

"When you first saw me at Macmillan Manor..." Lily tries to say, breaking the silence. They're sitting side by side on her bunk, a space left carefully between them. "You pulled me out of the way even though you had no idea what side I was on."

"I had to," James says, trying to wrap his mind around the whirlwind of emotions he was feeling then. It's...difficult. "I had to know."

"Did you -" she stops.

He flinches. "Did I -?"

"Nevermind," she says, looking down.

He knows she is thinking about it, that one stark moment in all the smoke and sweat and screaming, when they didn't know whether they could trust one another. And yet he is sure, had she turned out to be a Death Eater, he'd have felt just as safe. Because she's - she's Lily.

And Lily, no matter what, is a woman he trusts with his life...a woman he trusts with his heart...

"We had a fight before," she reminds him, interrupting his thoughts. He looks at her, not understanding. Why would she bring this up?"

The meaning is soon clear when he says, "Yeah?"

"So... are we still - still friends?" Lily asks tentatively.

James takes a shuddering breath and releases it in one _woosh_ of air. "Actually, that's what I want to talk about."

She pauses, avoiding looking at him. Her breathing is faster and his hands are shaking. "I..."

"I shouldn't have done the things I did," he blurts. "All of it - yelling at you, erm - kissing you, avoiding you - it was - I shouldn't have - I'm sorry..."

Something crosses Lily's face, an expression he can't place, that speaks subtly of disappointment. "I don't want you to..."

"I understand -"

"No, I don't want you to be sorry," she says, looking at the ceiling. "For any of that."

"But I should be. It was selfish, considering..."

"Considering what?"

James's hands are still trembling, and he shoves them in his pockets so she can't see, trying not to think about their proximity or the aloneness of the dormitory. He can't decide whether his anxiety is coming from a desire to kiss her or a desire to hurt her...

"James?" she pushes tentatively.

He shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "Considering... you know. You and Remus. I should keep my distance."

"Remus and me," she repeats.

He nods.

There's a pause, and then she says, "There's nothing between Remus and me."

He glances up, shock unfolding on his face and his mind unable to grasp this concept. "I - what - there isn't?" he fumbles. "But - but Sirius -"

She leans forward and kisses him.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter... reviews would very nice, though. It takes about thirty seconds to do, and it makes me really happy! So do it! Tell me what you think!


	34. In Which There Are Soliloquies

**Recap: **Marlene sees the Dark Mark outside St. Mungo's; Remus has a chance encounter with Lily's roommate, Elle, and later opens a mysterious letter and collapses; Peter finds Sirius in his apartment and tries to clean him up- there is a mention of Sirius's problem in his seventh year at Hogwarts; James goes to Lily's room to apologize and they kiss.

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter thirty-four**

It is raining.

Marlene, who is standing barefoot on the rickety fire escape outside her window, lets out a bark of laughter. Raindrops flatten her hair to her cheeks and stain her hospital gown. The Dark Mark looms ominously overhead, and for a moment, she's caught up in staring at it.

"I must look like a crazy woman," she mumbles to herself seconds later as she starts to descend the ladder. There is an incredible, mundane expanse of time before she touches the ground, and yet it seems to pass quickly, a fleeting moment of peace in a lifetime of adrenaline rushes.

The danger doesn't even affect her now, but then, has it _ever_ affected her? For exactly two blocks she runs 'round the front of the building where, as expected, nobody is keeping guard. Good - it's a search-and-destroy mission. The mannequin monitoring the entrance of the hospital has been blown to shreds; she laughs and dives through the glass.

"What's the problem here?" she asks coolly as she steps into the foyer of the hospital. Too much time has passed. A masked Death Eater turns, the visting outpatients huddling on the floor flinch, and Marlene lets out a slow, controlled breath.

"Ah," says the tinny voice behind the mask. "McKinnon."

"We've been looking for you," says another from behind her. She doesn't turn around - she feels the tip of a wand pressed into the small of her back, and that is enough.

"I know," she whispers.

"We killed your family," the tinny voice says. "Had a bit of a stopover in Edinburgh - they didn't cooperate very well."

She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from saying, _And you killed Gideon._ Gideon _was_ her family. But these murderers, these men who have rendered her alone in the world - they don't care. They probably don't know or remember Gideon's yellow hair, or his goofy smile, or his thoughtful eyes. His sarcasm, his sincerity, his love - all just another casualty of war, to the Death Eaters. To anyone but Marlene.

"Enough dilly-dallying," intones the man behind her, jabbing his wand almost painfully into her spine. He moves to her side, so she can see his silvery mask out of the corner of her eye. "Let's get this over with."

"Good luck with that," Marlene scoffs, elbowing him in the face. She bolts to the left and quickly draws her wand, backing against a wall. The Death Eaters, bristling, advance slowly.

"Don't... move..." growls one.

"Not out to kill me?" she taunts, laughing like a cornered dog, tongue lolling. Oh, if only Sirius could see her now! He often said she is very like him, and now she is, reverting to her natural state, every ounce as insane as she looks. "Because _I'm_ definitely out for blood, dears -"

The tinny-voiced man reacts first, lunging at her, and his cohort hastens to pull him back - Marlene shields herself from a Stunning spell and hits the tin man square in the chest with the Killing curse. His eyes pop open and he crumples to the floor. The rest is history.

She raises her wand a bit and looks challengingly at the remaining Death Eater. She can't see his expression for the mask, but he's shifty, moving around, keeping his wand well-trained on her.

Then he leaps backward and shouts something and the whole building hiccups again, plaster shedding off the walls as the bystanders scream. Marlene, weakened as she is, instantly falls to the ground, and a vine hastily wraps itself around her mouth, her ankles, her left wrist -

"Gerroff!" she yells, muffled by the ropey vine, struggling as it starts to constrict her. The Death Eater stands above her in her blurry, blackening vision.

Breathe. Breathe. Brea -

A lot of battles have been fought over the course of the war, but this isn't one of them. It's supposed to be an efficient strike, an assassination gone messy. For people like Marlene, it's difficult to remember when war and You-Know-Who weren't a threat, but had someone told her ten years ago that he'd be after _her_, personally, she would've laughed. Hysterically.

Which, as a matter of fact, she is doing now.

She can feel her heart straining to keep beating.

Her lungs stretching to keep breathing.

Her mind grasps blindly, and -

In a raw burst of power she throws off the ensnarement - flames roaring out from her skin, her heart's stopped with excitement - and she defends herself from several attacks before terminating the Death Eater. Just like that, and he falls to the floor by his counterpart, blood bubbling from his mouth.

No extravagant spellwork, just anger and _Avada Kedavra_.

"Get the hell out of here!" she screams at the crying witches and trembling wizards who are hiding behind potted plants, holding each other in corners. There are children under chairs, a Healer crouched behind the Welcome counter, and mad, mad Marlene in the middle of it all. "Are you wizards or not? Don't you people have _wands_?!"

Imagine this: a thin, half-blind woman in a blue hospital gown, barefoot, her damp hair slicked around her shoulders. Two dead bodies at her feet. All semblance of Marlene is gone and now there is only a crazed patient with a stick in her hand.

--

Remus blinks awake, light flooding his vision. He is lain out flat on a hard surface, but for a moment he can't see where he is at all, and he wonders - _Am I dead?_

Then he blinks harder and focuses his eyes, and he realizes he's actually looking at a white ceiling. Wherever he is, there is the lingering scent of sterilization and - oddly - oatmeal.

He flexes his hands experimentally and finds his wrists are strapped down, as are his ankles. The revelation of this restraint startles him - a man who has always preferred open spaces, forget being fastened to a table.

He _can_ lift his head, though, and doing so fills his gaze with a whole lot more - a white curtain around what actually seems to be a bed, not a table; white bedside desks; and an immaculate white floor.

"Hello?" he ventures softly, his voice painfully hoarse. Behind the white curtian, there is a faint rustling. "Erm -"

"Just one minute, dear," mumbles a voice. A moment later, the curtains part a little, and a very short, very fat woman in horridly pink scrubs waddles toward him.

"Er -"

"Good to see you're awake," she says in a very quiet, unclear voice - so he has to strain to hear her. "Let me get your restraints -"

To Remus's relief, she unhooks his wrists and ankles, and he sits up immediately, rubbing his jaw. Suddenly every muscle in his body is aching, and he feels like he's been biting down, hard - a feeling he truthfully used to associate with the full moon.

Come to think of it, he also is accustomed to waking up in unfamiliar places, thanks to the moon.

"Do you know your name and the year, dear?" asks the woman, who withdraws a large clipboard from one of the white bedside tables.

"Remus John Lupin, 1979," he answers confusedly, wincing at the harshness of his voice. His throat is searing.

"Ah," the woman says, making a tiny note on this clipboard and replacing it. She tugs a strange, silver instrument from around her neck. "Alright, shirt up, lean forward, please."

He obliges, a bit uncertainly, and nearly has a heart attack as she presses something cold and metal against his bare back.

"Breathe in deeply."

"Erm, can I ask -"

"Breathe in, hon."

Remus obediently sucks in a mouthful of air and expels it too, this process being repeats several times before she lets him drop his shirt back down and makes another observation on the clipboard.

He smoothes a hand over his hair, antsy. "Why - why am I here?"

The woman smiles at him, her pudgy face crinkling - he can't decide whether this is endearing or only slightly disgusting. "Oh, dear, you came in with an ambulance and we had to revive you."

The man's mouth falls open. "I - what happened?"

"Hm," the woman mumbles, glancing again at her clipboard. "Ah, here we are - a seizure. Nasty one, at that. You nearly died, but we saved you, of course!"

"Who's 'we'?" he demands anxiously, looking around the white room and trying to wrap his head around this. He almost -?

Remus almost died.

He fights back a wave of nausea.

"University Hospital of Wales, of course, dear."

"Oh," he says weakly. Such a thoroughly Muggle facility.

And yet he is sure he was cursed. There is no other explanation - the letter...

Just then, the curtain sweeps completely open, and a grey-bearded man in a long coat (just as perfectly white as the rest of the room) is standing there, looking at the pink, fat woman expectantly. (Behind him is just another, unoccupied bed and an open door beyond that.)

"Simmons," says the bearded man, who doesn't have any hair on his scalp at all, "We've a couple...visitors...here to receive our mysterious patient."

"His name's Mr. Lupin, Dean," responds Simmons, her face almost as pink as her scrubs. Remus politely ignores this. "I'll just have him finish up all his insurance -"

"Yeah, yeah," says the bearded man dismissively. "Make sure you don't mess it up this time, nurse." He leaves.

The woman clears her throat and turns back to Remus, once again taking up the large clipboard. "_Well_," she mumbles gruffly, composing herself, "I'll just need your insurance information and ID."

"Er... I don't have either," he says awkwardly, feeling suddenly on the spot. "I wasn't exactly planning on coming, see -"

"Alright then, just your 'phone, here, and your address, please, dear," she says with a little more force than necessary, shoving the clipboard at him. Remus wonders who this "Dean" man is and what kind of story there is behind this. Strange things like that have always intrigued him.

It's just enough to keep his mind off his predicament.

After he signs away his soul (it's a good thing he has medical insurance now, because the hospital bill is pretty hefty) he is given a very fat bottle of medication (this perplexes him) and is led down a hall to an immaculate lobby.

It's a bit eerie - patients are sitting quietly in chairs, standing patiently in queues, not at all like the hospitals he's used to. But he feels immensely relieved - because there, looking completely out of place, are the two people he _really_ needs to see: Albus Dumbledore and Alastor Moody.

--

Sirius is drunk and exhausted as he staggers out of a pub toward his motorbike. It's the middle of the day, but he doesn't care, tugging his leather jacket on over his shoulders - it sticks uncomfortably to his damp skin - and fumbling about for a helmet.

He can't find it, so he forgoes safety, crawling clumsily onto the saddle of the machine. He kicks it into motion and the engine roars as he weaves unsteadily onto the street.

The wind whips his face, and the asphalt glitters blackly, and for a moment he is able to blink past the alcohol and think, _Something's not right_. But what his mind fails to tell him is that "something" is his being on the wrong side of the road.

There is a horn blaring.

A screech of tires.

Sirius yells. He swerves.

And then, suddenly, he is flying through the air.

--

At the exact moment Sirius is in a car accident, his best friend is kissing Lily Evans.

James pulls away, quickly, his mind racing, and already Lily is looking at him with the strangest look in her eyes. He swallows.

"You..."

"I'm sorry," she says quickly, pulling away. "I don't - I thought -"

The lights in the room flicker, and James is brought crashing back to Earth. She is close to him, too close, and his heart is pulsing and plummeting with excitement and anticipation and - mostly - fear.

"We've been here before," he says, very quietly. "We've -"

"I like you," she interrupts. "I -"

It seems neither of them know what else to say. James lets his gaze flit to the side, staring at a neutral point in space. His breathing is ragged and he feels, suddenly, claustrophobic.

"I have to get out of here," he croacks, avoiding her eyes. "It's - you wouldn't understand..."

"No, no - go," Lily half-murmurs, though her tone is strained. He then dares to look at her face, and the expression there startles him: complete and utter vulnerability. And he wonders if he looks like that too. And whether, if he stays there too long, he could do something he will regret.

"You're my friend," he says, getting up quickly (it's all he can do not to bolt right now, but the panic is close to setting in and that's not what he wants her to see). "...and..."

"What you said about..."

"About keeping my distance," he finishes quickly, not wanting her to say _about Remus_ or _about us_ or any of those other painful phrases that can follow. He struggles to say, "I need to - I'm not - I don't want to hurt you."

She looks at him, and the vulnerability is gone. He can't read her. "Yeah. Erm - you're not, erm, well..."

"Right," he says. "I'm not well."

That's the only way he can put it.

But his heart is aching so badly that a terrible conflict rises up in him; his head is screaming no. He could - he could hurt her, if he got too close, if she let him get too close. This is a lesson he's learned a bit too late.

"I should go," he says.

--

"What's happening?" is the first thing Remus asks. Dumbledore, who is sitting behind his desk with his hands folded, raises his eyebrows demurely.

"As I understand it, we are having a conversation," the elderly wizard responds, with a touch of amusement.

"Tell the boy, Albus," Moody growls from one side. His eyes dart quickly to Remus. "He's been cursed, he deserves to know -"

"Naturally," Dumbledore replies, "But first -" He reaches one long finger to tocuh a round silver object lying on his desk. The object spins suddenly in place, then freezes again, facing Remus.

"Erm..."

"It seems the curse has decided to remain where it is," Dumbledore muses. "How curious."

"Curious, sir?" Remus shifts in his seat. It's hardly _curious_ to him - _he's_ the one who nearly died. The wracking pain sent through his body, the pain that Muggle doctors dubbed a "seizure", was so much worse than that...

He shudders, shoving the thought down.

Dumbledore is nodding thoughtfully. "If I may, Remus - what do you know of the Order of the Phoenix?"

Remus glances up. "The what, sir?"

"A resistance, boy," Moody says forcefully, turning on him. "A movement against You-Know-Who."

"I -" He pauses, then falters. "I might've caught wind of it...from Lily..."

"Yes, I thought as much," Dumbledore agrees. "But you know none of its _actual_ secrets, correct? Only of its existence?"

Fleeting Remus thinks of what Elle told him that morning: _I'm just around to keep an eye on them... Dumbledore's being _very_ careful..._ But something tells him this is not the answer the men are looking for. He nods.

"You realize what this means, Albus?" Moody scoffs incredulously.

"Indeed," the old man assures. "Undoubtedly, you are thinking that Remus was only an accidental victim. And I would quite agree."

"Excuse me?" Remus interrups. "That cursed letter - it was addressed to me-"

"Yellow owl?" Moody grunts.

"Yeah, I think -"

"We've had several similar letters sent to members of the resistance," Dumbledore tells him gently. "Fortunately, they are trained not to open letters from mysterious senders without a thorough search."

Remus shifts in his seat. "What does this have to do with me?"

"They thought you were an Order member." That is Moody, blunt as usual, as he becomes slightly impatient with the conversation. "We figured they had someone on the inside, giving out names -"

"But it seems you were mistaken for a member, which disproves our theory," Dumbledore finishes. "We can only conclude that your assocation with several Order members 'gave you away', so to speak."

Remus swallows.

Then Dumbledore says something that blows him out of the water.

* * *

**Author's Note:** My sincerest apologies for the late update. I know I'm not the most punctual at updating (understatement) but I do try and update every week, which I've consisently failed to do since school started. I hope it hasn't put any off this story.

This is actually my most favorite chapter in the entire story to write, except it was much, much different in the first draft and included a lot more plot (but it was also twice as long and included a few unrelated plot devices that I decided in the end to cut out).

If you review, I'll love you forever! Well, maybe not forever, maybe not love, but I'll like you for a bit. So please do. =]


	35. In Which Slight Changes Come About

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter thirty-five**

James Potter emerges from the bathroom wearing jeans, a slightly damp T-shirt, and fogged-up specs. He's toweling off his hair, yawning, and for that brief moment he feels perfectly normal again. For that brief moment, he can forget his problems.

Then he blinks.

Sirius Black is sitting in his kitchenette, one leg folded beneath him, with a box of strawberries in front of him, pressing a bag of frozen peas again his eyes.

"What the hell, Sirius," James exclaims, striding over. He snatches the box up, then, not sure what to do with it, slams it down again. "You're _allergic_ to these. That means _you don't eat them_."

"I thought you'd go after that first," the young man says tonelessly, pulling away his homemade ice pack. James is blown away. The entire left side of Sirius's face is purple and yellow and swollen, so that he can barely squeeze open his eye. Several bright red scrapes trail down his jaw.

"Holy buggery hell," James says, jaw hanging open.

"Yeah, you should see the other guy," Sirius tries to joke, but he's already unbuttoning his shirt, only far enough to expose his collarbone and left shoulder, which are equally bruised.

There's a tiny bit of dried blood on the flap of his collar.

"What _happened_?"

He gives a bitter little laugh and says, "Don't drink and drive, mate."

James is slightly sickened by this. "You went out -?"

Sirius nods, buttoning up his collar slowly. His motions are stiff and jerky and painful, but James is more concerned with the expression on his face. He looks…nonchalant. As if this has happened before. "It's nothing."

"Obviously not," James says, sitting down. "Why'd you go?"

"Isn't it enough to say 'I wanted to'?"

Something in Sirius's tone is unfamiliar, a tiny nuance James isn't sure is there.

And still, it drives him to say, "…are you okay, Padfoot?"

The eighteen year-old stiffens.

His voice is careful as he responds, "Why ask now?"

After a long, uncertain silence, Sirius gets up and leaves the apartment.

--

"I have news."

This is what Remus says when he appears at Lily's door just at dusk. He is trembling from all the truth he has been filled up with, but of course Lily is perfectly calm, pulling him into the apartment.

For a moment he just looks at her, and her face turns slightly pink, but he brushes this off, having other things on his mind.

"I thought you'd be out," he says apologetically, removing his cap. "Sorry if you were in the middle of something."

"Just homework," she says in a very un-Lily-like manner, and he realizes he hasn't spoken with her in an incredibly long time – today, even, being…

"Happy birthday," he says quickly, shakily pressing a kiss to her cheek, and much to his bemusement she blushes even deeper. "I'm sorry I didn't get you a present."

"Nonsense," she says, sitting him in the only chair in the room. "What's your news?"

She sounds forced, a fake kind of cheerful, that sets off more alarm bells in Remus's mind. For a moment he contemplates not telling her but this isn't exactly something one is meant to keep to himself…

"I was cursed," he blurts out. Lily's face immediately pales.

"Oh my God," she breathes. "What? How? Are you okay? Did you see a Healer?"

He raises his hands in the air. "Slow down, Lily… I'm fine. And no, I didn't see a Healer. I saw a… doctor."

She picks up his hand and squeezes it. "It must not have been that bad, then."

"I nearly died."

There is a touch of quiet. "I'm glad you didn't," Lily tells him, pulling away. "But you need to tell me what happened. In full."

So he tells her exactly, from the mysterious owl to the waking up in a Muggle hospital to his meeting with Dumbledore…

Remus carefully leaves out two things, one being the part where Moody told him they'd traced the curse back to Severus Snape.

--

"This is the same kind of curse placed on Prewett," Moody growls. "How do we know this won't kill Lupin too?"

"Remus has extraordinary strength, Alastor," Dumbledore replies calmly. "As for Fabian – hope is only lost when he has breathed his last breath. Don't do him the dishonor of giving up just yet."

--

James finds himself in, of all places, the office of Alastor Moody. It's late, nearly midnight, and the department is quite empty except for him, Moody, and two fat, flickering candles to keep the room lit.

He almost scoffs at this – working by candlelight, using feather quills and thick parchment – perhaps he's spent too much time away from the home, because the traditions that used to seem perfectly normal now strike him as primitive.

"At what hour did you receive this, Potter?" The gruff Auror slides the sealed letter across the table to inspect it. He turns it over to examine the handwriting on the label.

"Maybe nine," James says, shifting in his seat. "Remus got one too, didn't he?"

"Yeah, and opened it, too."

He feels his jaw drop slightly. Remus was cursed? "How – how is he?"

"Alright now, by dumb luck," Moody tells him. Clearly he does not think highly of Remus's intellect. He picks up in the envelope and turns it under the light. "You try to defuse this?"

"Yeah," James admitted.

The older man shakes his head. "Well, you've made the damn thing untraceable. Useless as evidence, unless you plan to testify any time soon."

"I'd testify in a heartbeat -"

"A joke, Potter. Dumbledore's said ix-nay on court proceedings. This case is a bit more…private."

James is silent for a moment. "It doesn't have to be Snape," he says, not entirely sure why. He hates Snape, after all, hates everything he represents. But for some reason he cannot conjure his old classmate's face in his mind and think of him as a killer. "It could've been anyone. Snape's not a Death Eater yet, is he?"

"We have reason to believe he is."

"Well -" James swallows "- it doesn't have to be a Death Eater, does it? It could be anyone."

"I've seen a lot of assassination attempts in my day, Potter, and I can assure you this is the typical Death Eater approach," Moody informs him a bit sourly. "Don't want to sully their names by doing it in person."

"It could be _anyone_ with a big name," he then argues. "What's Snape got to protect? It could be – dunno, by your definition it could be Sirius!"

"No killer. He's got puppy-like compassion, that Black," the Auror gruffly muses, seizing this opportunity for a subject change. "Odd, paired with that temper. Think you're a bit even'r."

James shifts in his chair. "I'm sure Sirius has killed before – on a mission," he says defensively.

"Doubt it. You can usually tell."

He looks at his hands and wonders how, exactly, one can tell. If it's a physical marker, he hasn't found it. "What's the indicator?" he asks, trying to sound casually interested.

Moody looks up, an odd expression on his normally scowling face. "Guilt. Paranoia. Exhaustion. It's written all over a man's face."

"But maybe it's misinterpreted. Maybe it's just exhaustion from fighting."

The man laughs harshly. "You think I don't know? Every Auror in this department has something happen out on the field that he pretends doesn't affect him."

"What's the point? It's for a better cause." There is an edge of uncertainty in James's voice.

"Has it ever occurred to you, Potter, that everyone thinks he's on the right side?" Moody watches him consideringly. "All crimes are for a better cause…and we're criminals, just like everyone else."

"So you're just supposed to hide it away all your life?" James asks helplessly. "It never gets better?"

A beat of silence. Then, "No. It never gets better."

"How do we – do people like you deal with it?"

"I'll tell you something," the Auror says, cutting out another bitter laugh, "you read about these 'heroes' in the paper? Each and every one of 'em lies in bed at night trying to stave it off, wondering how they got tangled up in such a godforsaken mess. You think this is tough, Potter, wait until you lose a friend in battle."

James breathes, "How badly does it hurt?"

"Like every breath of air you take could've been theirs instead," says the rough-looking man, and James sees something there in Moody's expression that is totally unexpected. Something like regret.

A physical need to stop living, breathing, to will your heart to stop beating, oh, James knows too well how this much be. Survivor's guilt, it's called, except the term is inexcusably pale compared to the real thing.

--

Remus and Lily watch the clock together. The minute hand clicks. It's now past midnight.

"My birthday's over," she says, half-smiling, but the smile, like all the others, is not a genuine one. She looks tired, settled there against the wall with her knees pulled up to her chest. Remus looks at her and shifts in the chair.

There's something going on he doesn't understand.

"Was it a good one?" he asks softly.

Lily shrugs weakly.

"Lee," he murmurs, getting up to join her on the floor, "Are you alright?"

She sighs half-heartedly and leans into his shoulder, saying, "Not really. I don't know. Everything's piling up at once."

"I know what you mean," he replies, thinking of Elle Goldeir, and the news he still hasn't given her, and, perhaps most of all, the curse supposedly burdening his body. His jaw, his lungs, his whole body still ache from the "seizure", but more so he feels a weight pressing down on his shoulders, his heart beats slower, his senses feel muffled…

"Do you think," she says quietly, "that coming to Cardiff was the wrong idea?"

Remus puts his arm around her shoulders, wincing a bit as he does so. "Maybe it was," he says, "or maybe it wasn't."

There is a tender silence before she says, "Will you stay?"

He's not sure if Lily means _stay at Cardiff_ or simply _stay the night_, but he kisses her temple and tells her, "Of course I will."

* * *

**Author's Note:** I know this chapter is short, but it's quite important. A lot of little things in here are bound to come back in the future...

Please review and tell me what you like and dislike about this chapter, and especially what can be improved (not so much plot-wise as writing-wise). I would really like feedback in order to become a better writer. :] Thank you, darlings.


	36. In Which A Travesty Occurs

**Recap: Sirius is in a motorbike accident, and tries to explain to James, resulting in Sirius storming off; Remus tells Lily someone has tried to kill him; James talks with Moody about guilt; Lily and Remus reconnect.**

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter thirty-six**

Lily blinks awake, her knees and neck aching, and it is a full minute of sleepy incomprehension before she realizes she is still sitting on the floor of her dorm room, her head tucked uncomfortably into Remus's shoulder.

He is still asleep, and the half-circles under his eyes make it clear that he is sick and exhausted. Something in her whimpers. She's not unaccustomed to seeing her friend looking unwell, but it's not, she suspects, because of the moon.

It's because of the curse. The cursed letter, an actual assassination attempt, and only by some miracle has he survived. Lily will never say this, but she suspects Remus's lycanthropy may've played a role in the saving of his life. For all the illness it causes him, he certainly has been made stronger too…

Remus snorts in his sleep and shifts slightly closer, and then she remembers the assumption James had made – about her relationship with this man – and she blushes.

That can't be what Remus wants. They are friends. They've always _been_ friends. And if he wants more, he'll say something…won't he?

Still, the damage is done in her mind, and she gently pushes him away and whispers, "Remus."

He tilts precariously – sleeping sitting up is never easy – and she whispers his name again, a little louder this time. He stirs.

He rubs his eyes and mumbles something in French, leaning his head against the white plaster wall. She takes this to mean he is not fully awake yet, because Remus is normally very self-conscious about speaking in other languages.

"_Remus_," she says for a third time, "I really need you to get up."

He does open his eyes now, and he shifts away from her to get up slowly, croaking, "Right, I'm up…"

"You said something in French," she tells him as if this did not happen just thirty seconds ago. She struggles to her feet too, joints sore. He seems to have it worse, though, wincing and rubbing his jaw.

"My whole body aches," he says, tactfully ignoring her comment.

Lily feels a pang of guilt – here she has been worrying about giving him the wrong idea, but he is her _best friend_, and at this moment, he needs her. She moves forward and wraps her arms around his waist. He reciprocates, a little surprised but warm, moving his hand in soft, ingenuous circles over her shoulder blade.

"I'm glad you're okay," she tells him, squeezing his torso and leaning her cheek on his shoulder.

"I'm glad, too," he responds quietly.

His chest moves up and down with his breath, and in this Lily is oddly reassured – both in its steady rhythm and in the knowledge that he is very much alive, and, at least for now, she is not alone.

--

Sirius is a black silhouette in the sharp morning air, his hands fisted in his pockets and his shoulders curved under an invisible weight. He is silent and still outside the grey building, the rook ready to take another step towards either checkmate or simply sacrifice. And then he moves forward, his feet shuffling against the concrete floor like, unbeknownst to him, Remus's had only minutes before, and he finds his way up to Lily's door.

He hesitates before knocking.

The door opens after a moment and Lily is there, tired but nonetheless wonderful to see, and such relief feels his heart that for a moment he forgets why he's here.

"Sirius," she says surprisedly. "Has – has something happened?"

And then his stomach plummets, and that warm feeling is gone, and he is back to the Sirius that, it seems, he's doomed to be: bringer of bad news.

"Yeah, something's happened," he mumbles, tugging at his sleeves. "Can I come in?"

She steps away from the door, and he comes in, remembering the first time he was there, and wonders how he could've been so stupid then. _He_ had been the composed one then, breaking down barriers for the sake of curiosity…

And at the same time he was practically _begging_ for James to come to the frontlines. But now – now he knows, understands the price of war.

"What is it?" Lily asks. She is pressing a cup of tea into his hands – strange, because she doesn't even have a kettle. But she doesn't ask about his face, which he supposes he should be grateful for.

He shakily takes a seat on the edge of her bed, and she leans against her desk, watching him. "It's Marlene," he says quietly.

"She's gone," she answers blankly, her face becoming serious, her eyes widening. He falters.

"Yesterday morning, she…"

She nods, but although her expression is calm he can see her hands trembling against the wood of her desk, and her breathing quickens. "And – someone sent you to tell me?"

He nods too.

For a moment they are silent, and Lily's eyes close, but she doesn't cry. And Sirius finds himself whispering, "It was suicide."

"…what?"

"Suicide," he repeats, looking at the ground. "Death Eaters were after information and she – she didn't want to be captured."

Lily is quiet. She doesn't look at him for a long time, and when she does, it's with a great shuddering breath, and an "Okay," and he knows she'll be alright.

If only it were that easy for him.

--

"_Familiar?"_

_A glossy photograph – a lanky boy, maybe 17._

"_Yeah. Lestrange. Rabastan Lestrange. Went to Hogwarts with him."_

"_Anything else?"_

"_He's a Death Eater. Signed on Re -"_

_A beat. A patient look._

"_- my brother."_

--

Her fingertips are brushing across his jaw, gingerly tracing the outline of his bruise. "How are you?" she asks very softly. Sirius shivers.

"I'm fine," he says, catching her hand and pulling it away. She looks at him.

And as quickly as it was brought up, his resolve crumbles.

"No," he admits.

And then Lily does something he will always be grateful for – and marvel at.

She says again, "Okay," and squeezes his fingers.

--

"_And… this one?"_

"_I don't know."_

"_Are you sure?"_

"Don't_ provoke me." Anger. A shuddering breath. And… pain?_

_A beautiful young man. Beaming. Waving._

_Another young man, not as beautiful anymore. Seething._

"_I think we need to talk about what you can provide to the Order."_

_The photograph fell._

--

To love her. Not to lover her. Right now, a certain young man is wishing for the latter.

So she reciprocates his feelings. James knows this should make him happy, happier than ever, but instead he only feels worse.

He sits in a lecture hall – far in the back, carefully away from other students – and pretends to be taking notes. Instead, he doodles and thinks.

It's not that he doesn't want to be with her. He does, so badly. But every time he looks at another human being, his heart quickens and his hands tremble and he's afraid, desperately afraid, that he might snap. That after all this time, he too has gone crazy. That he, like Marlene, is nearing a breakdown – an end.

He'll keep Lily as far out of that mess as he can.

"Dismissed."

People begin to file out of the room, murmuring amongst themselves. James really looks at his paper for the first time.

It's a drawing of a dog.

--

For a family so enraptured with its pureblooded heritage, the Blacks chose a rather strange place to live: in the very depths of a Muggle neighborhood, that is – number 12, Grimmauld Place is just about the most average, ordinary British residence imaginable, except for its apparent inexistence. For the first time in his 18 years, Sirius finds himself wondering why they didn't live like other old, pure families – on the countryside, or in little villages, with more privacy and more wizards.

The sight of home brings back a sickening nostalgia that he hopes never to feel again – because despite everything, there _were_ good memories in this place; his childhood dreams and realities, and this is where Sirius Black was molded. Or, rather, broke the mold.

He can still recall with clarity every lewd poster, every Gryffindor-esque ornament in his room. His haven.

But what is the House of Black to him?

"Nothing more than a revisited memory," he tells himself, unscrewing the top from a tiny flask and going for a swallow of liquid courage. But the whiskey burns his lips and he tilts the thing away, remembering Lily's face when he told her Marlene died.

The sensation of being sober is odd. Unfamiliar, almost.

For once, Sirius feels… safe.

He knocks. The door is answered. And then his face becomes trained and blank.

"Hello, Mother," he says.

--

"Enough with this dilly-dallying," Moody says angrily. "We're on Dolohov's trail; now it's just a matter of getting charges on Karkaroff. We need this case."

"I cannot allow you to parade the Prewetts' pain, Alastor," Dumbledore answers quietly. A few of the witches and wizards in the room nod in agreement; others look skeptical. "Fabian has far too much to struggle with already."

--

Sirius is secretly pleased at how much older his mother looks. She once was so elegant, the one to blame for her children's good looks, but now she has grown grey. Angry wrinkles have announced themselves on her pale face, and she's put on quite a lot of weight since her last saw her, which was – what? Half a year ago, at the King's Cross? Even then it was from a careful distance.

Contrary to his expectations, Walburga doesn't close the door in his face. In fact, this was only wishful thinking. She instead looks at him and shrieks at the top of her lungs.

"What the _devil_ do you think you're doing on my doorstep, you filthy rag, you blood traitor?!"

"I've come back," he says very calmly, feeling some of his fear fade. Something like excitement – something strangely enjoyable – mounts in his stomach, and he watches eagerly for her reaction.

"There is no _place_ for runaway scum like yourself," the old woman proclaims, "in _this_ family." She moves to slam the door, but Sirius stops her by saying:

"I'm the last Black."

A beat.

Then Walburga is incredulously angry. "_You_," she hisses, "are not a Black."

"You need me," he says, grabbing the door and pulling it all the way open. Outwardly he is calm, but on the inside his chest is bubbling with the adrenaline, the bloody _thrill_, and he feels – oddly – alive, for once in a very long time. "Regulus is dead. Who's the real traitor?"

It doesn't even make him flinch to say this, but Regulus's name on his lips feel disgusting, sacrilege. Soiled. Yet it has the same effect on his mother, who is so thoroughly ashamed of her younger son that her face turns purple with rage.

"But _I_ am here, Mother," Sirius reminds her delicately, tasting the words in his mouth. "I am back now. Your runaway son, reconciled. And I'm here to continue your name."

He can see her wrestling with the validity of his point. He is the last living male of the family. It is the two of them now. And without him, the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black will soon be no more.

Walburga's mouth closes, and she hesitates, and he feels an unpleasant sort of happiness as she steps away from the thresh hold.

"Let us speak inside," she says stiffly, "…son."

* * *

**Author's Note:** I'm sorry for the wait - I'm very busy. I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, but it would be nice to hear what _you_ think about it. Thanks!


	37. In Which A Change Is Made

**Recap:**Sirius is in a motorbike accident, and has a brief fight with James about it; someone has attempted to kill Remus by sending him a cursed letter, but he recovers; James, stressed out by the Order, decides not to pursue a relationship with Lily due to his current emotional/mental instability; Remus and Lily reconnect; Sirius breaks the news of Marlene's death to Lily; he returns to Grimmauld Place and speaks with his mother.

* * *

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter thirty-seven**

The morning is quiet and still, but there is a distinct stirring in the air, an unidentifiable sort of restlessness that makes the whole world, cool and murmuring with life, feel like spring.

A similar restlessness is blooming in Lily's heart, though an unhappy one, an acidic kind of anxiety that burns under her ribcage and tickles painfully at her emotions.

She is standing at the kitchen table in the Prewetts' home for one of the last meetings she will attend here. Order members crowd around, squeezing into chairs and pushing close to the table, close to Dumbledore, like he is a flame, and they are the moths. And the restlessness we speak of is because of those people, because of, among them, James. Sirius. And _Remus._

Now she brushes her fingers against his, half to reassure him and half to reassure herself. He glances sideways and smiles.

Dumbledore, meanwhile, is saying something. His words are fuzzy and unpleasant in Lily's ears.

"For now," the wizard tells them, "we shall have to operate on a defensive basis."

Lily chances a look up. Across the room, James is listening intently, and Sirius – Sirius's mouth curls into a frown.

Before she can decipher this, however, Dumbledore adds:

"And I should like our members at Cardiff to move into a safe house."

"What?" This is James, and his tone is incredulous, almost harsh with surprise. It startles her out of her reverie and her focus instead turns on him, zoning in on his every word. "A safe house? Why?"

Beside her, Remus shifts uncomfortably.

"For the time being," Dumbledore explains as if to a child, "it is prudent for the three of you to stay in a secure location. Death Eater activity in Wales had multiplied… Miss Vance already kindly volunteered her abode."

Lily can tell right away that this does not sit well with James – neither the words nor the manner with which they were presented. She watches him take a deep breath and exhale unhappily.

"The three of us?" he finally says. "What about Sirius?"

Sirius stiffens slightly beside him. His pale face turns to Dumbledore.

"He will move," the old man affirms. "Mr. Lupin, on the other hand, will not."

Lily's heart stops. She looks to Remus, her best friend in the world, and in the silence he doesn't react. His expression is calm, no twitch of his lip, no intake of breath.

He's known about this; sometime between when she last saw him and now, he was told – or maybe he knew all along. _Lily, Sirius, and James –_ living in a safe house for who knows how long.

"But why?" she asks quietly, so quietly she's not sure anyone can hear her.

Remus does. He gives her a grim, apologetic smile, the faded scars on his face crinkling with his expression, and says, "You know why."

Dumbledore continues to speak. He's moved on to the next order of business, and is moving efficiently along the agenda until James yet again interrupts.

"Sir. If I may -?"

"Yes, Mr. Potter?" the wizard responds patiently.

James glances around the room, and for a moment his gaze lands on Lily. But it flickers away quickly.

"I have a better location for a safe house," he says. "It's already got wards up; it's still in Wales and everything…"

Next to him, Sirius's mouth is one tight line. His eyes are closed.

--

"Will you be helping us, then?"

"You know I would do anything to help."

Remus is looking into the eyes of Alastor Moody. The Auror shakes his head.

"You would have to testify."

Remus swallows. Something like apprehension mills in his stomach. "Would I be a credible witness?"

--

At the same time, Fabian Prewett is lying in bed. His breath is shallow, but steady. He reads a book and doesn't speak to anyone at all.

After a moment of contemplation, he reaches for something on his bedside table: a quill and some parchment.

--

"I need to talk to you," Sirius mutters in James's ear, and it is as if the two friends never fought in the first place. James pulls away from the dwindling meeting, and they head to the lean-to, where conversation is more private.

It is raining today. James has a sickening sense of déjà vu.

"What is it?" he inquires with a bit of a shiver. Judging by Sirius's expression – twitching, like many emotions battling to be seen first – that whatever his friend wants to talk about must be especially bad.

But true to his nature, the younger man is blunt. "I saw my mum yesterday."

James's mouth falls open. "Where?"

"Grimmauld."

There is silence. Confusion wells up; all these years, Sirius has been declaring he'll never go back. First the abrupt argument, and now this – what next?

"I know," the man says finally, seeing James's perplexity. "I have to tell you…"

--

"A safe house," Lily is saying. "A genuine safe house."

"It will be alright," Remus responds, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. Though it may be indicative of the "strength" of their friendship recently, the poor man can't help but admit he is nonplussed. The unhappy expression on her face is unusual.

She is silent for a moment.

Remus notes that on another day she may've leaned on his shoulder, or taken his hand, but today it is different. He lets his arms dangle at his side, to see if she will take such an opportunity; she never does. He is left waiting.

"It will really be fine," he assures her as he thinks, _inevitability in male-female friendships…_

The little awkward moments. The melting warmth in his stomach that shouldn't be there. It's only something he's learned to deal with.

--

"So you're saying she just took you back into the family with no questions?" James is unable to hide his skepticism, just as he is unable to comprehend this sudden change. The rift between Sirius and his bloodline is one that he imagined could never heal.

Sirius, on the other hand, is impatient. "_No_," he says. "She had this speech about the integrity of the Black household that I'll wager she's been waiting all these two years to use… but she's really desperate for a son at the moment, continue the bloodline."

"I reckon she hasn't heard about you in the Order then."

"I don't think she's connected enough to get that kind of information anymore."

"But," the nineteen year-old presses – gently, because he doesn't want to provoke another fight – "Are you sure this is what you want to do? Getting mixed up in that crowd again?"

Sirius shrugs weakly, and something like longing echoes in his eyes. "What else can I do?" he asks, voice as hollow as the sound reverberating off the tin lean-to. "I don't have another purpose."

"It's _risky_," James says.

"And? If I get killed, so what?"

His mouth falls open slightly. "So – so we lose you," he stammers, and Sirius is genuine when he looks to his eyes. But all James can see in that gaze is exhaustion… and concession.

"I could lose _you_ just as easily," Sirius reminds him softly. "Anyone in the Order could die. We all end up in the dirt eventually – why does it matter to me when?"

"Don't talk like that, Padfoot," James finds himself saying, and the expression on his friend's face instantly turns sour. Angry.

It is a long, tense moment before Sirius says slowly, "I don't get it."

His voice is harsh again.

"Get what?" ventures James, nonplussed and with a certain sense rising in his throat like bile. Sirius's answer is quick.

"_Why_ we have those nicknames," he says in frustration. "Why – why anything. Why we became Animagi –"

"Pad – Sirius –"

"Face it, we're not the 'Marauders' and we never were." Sirius is staring determinedly at James, and although it's clear the outburst is over, there is a weighted silence before the latter can reply.

And even then, his reply is starkly quiet. "Do you remember the fourth Marauder?" he asks, eyes leveled on his friend.

"Yeah, I remember the _fourth_ Marauder," Sirius snaps. "You mean the one that didn't fucking _exist_."

"He existed."

"For a day. One prank. That's all. We didn't even know who the fuck he was, we just kept saying to ourselves, _Oh, we'll find him eventually, he'll want to help out again_ –"

"We did it for him," James interrupts aggressively, and the place falls eerily silent as Sirius, startled, ends his tirade. Coldness still lingers in the grey eyes. Not long before they'd been as icy as a killer's.

James stares back into those eyes and wonders why he hasn't noticed this before. The lack of warmth. There always was warmth, jovial laughter even, in Sirius when they were younger.

He starts to wonder what's changed.

"I just want to know why," Sirius says, his voice cracking.

James is incredulous. "Don't you remember?" he pushes. "We wanted to achieve. To make the ultimate prank. To cheat the system."

"_I guess you could say I'm cheating the system," said the thin, mousy-haired boy as he helped set up Dungbombs. "Maybe that makes me the master prankster."_

"_How are you doing that?" James asked eagerly, exchanging looks with his two friends._

_The stranger paused. "I guess…think of the most dangerous, blatantly illegal thing a person _can_ do. Like just existing here is against the law." He finished lining up the Dungbombs, then waved. "Well, good luck. Cheers."_

_An awed, eleven year-old James had forgotten to ask his name._

"So what?" Sirius challenges. "So we cheat the system. We're fifteen, sixteen years old. Now we have to live with that mistake all our lives. As unregistered Animagi –"

"You can't convince me you're afraid of being caught," James says dryly, but Sirius is already removing himself from the conversation, heading back inside, and it's been so long since James had a _normal_ conversation with his best friend that he doesn't think to call the man back.

--

"It'll only be for a couple weeks, right?"

"Until Emmeline can step in and replace us," Lily confirms, all her heart in her throat. She doesn't want to go. Not long ago, she all but gave up the magical world. And now she is wholly dedicated to one of its causes.

Truthfully, she's not sure how she feels about that.

Remus is looking at her now, a strange expression on his face, and Lily can't interpret it.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Wow... erm... guess who feels like the biggest DB on ? This girl right here. Seriously, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to apologize (again) for being late updating, because being _this_ late is just ridiculous. (My bad.) So, to make it up to you... yeah, I'm not really sure how I'm going to make it up to you. I'll do something though. (In my defense, it _is_ NaNoWriMo right now...)


	38. In Which Something Goes Awry

**Recap:** Remus is nearly killed by a cursed letter; Sirius talks his way back into favor with his family; James and Sirius have yet another fight; James and Lily have confessed their feelings, but James is not in a state to be in a relationship; Dumbledore wants them to live in a safehouse.

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter thirty-eight**

Lily's hands shake as she shuts the clasp on her suitcase and hikes a satchel over her shoulder. Remus is watching her from the doorway, not speaking, but rather just waiting. After a moment, she turns to him.

"Okay," she says. "I'm ready."

The car ride is silent as well. Lily did not ask why Remus prefers to drive, when she could easily have gotten a driver to take her to the apparition point. But no matter- he is here, and clearly he wants to see her off, and seeing as how they are best friends, the girl is not about to deny him that opportunity.

"You'll write?" he inquires with an air of forced casualness. His knuckles tighten around the steering wheel. He really isn't a very good driver.

"It'll only be a few weeks," she reminds him for what seems like the hundredth time. The thought has been pounding mercilessly at her mind for days: war. The Order. A safehouse in Wales.

A safehouse in Wales with _James and Sirius._

"But write," Remus presses on. "So I know you're actually _safe_."

She laughs a little, battling down anxiety that threatens to bubble up her esophagus. "I should think _you're_ the one to worry about, Remus- you nearly _died -_"

"Anyone could've received a cursed letter," he says as if this is an everyday occurrence. "I'm going to testify -" The young man stops short.

"How? They don't even know the culprit."

"Right," he quickly says. "I'll testify once they deduce his identity."

Thankfully, Lily doesn't seem to notice his slipup.

They come to the apparition point minutes later, a little beach buried on the shoreline. The sea laps hungrily at the edge as Lily steps out of the sedan, her luggage following.

The air is unpleasantly cold- winter is still just receding.

She leans over to blow Remus a lighthearted kiss. "I'll see you in a tad bit," she tells him with a brave smile.

He forces himself to smile back.

--

Perhaps the most interesting thing about James and Sirius, Lily hates to admit, is their pureblood background.

It's a shame to say so, and probably proof that Wizarding idealism- or is it racism? – is getting to her, but there's something vaguely attractive about the idea, just the word, even.

It sounds… worthy: the end product of years of careful cultivation on the families' parts.

James scoffs when she suggests it: "I'm no more worthy than you are," he says, "and don't let old prejudices teach you otherwise."

Sirius, she notices, remains quiet. His expression is dark, but this has been true so often lately that it has ceased to affect her.

Unfortunately, Lily's misgivings about her origins are only exacerbated when she sees their new dwelling.

The Potter mansion is a beautiful, Victorian farmhouse set in the middle of a sprawling grove of orange trees- the provocative aroma of citrus weighs thickly in the air, like a warm blanket that wraps around them. Brick pathways fork in every direction, and the edge of the manor catapults up into hilly terrain, so she cannot even see where Potter property begins and ends.

"We used to spend all day running through those hills," James comments as they hoof it through the grove up the main path. "I could never be bored here."

Indeed, she can't see how _anyone_ could be bored here- because aside from the surrounding wilderness, the Potter Manor has all the qualities of a self-sustaining farm: a small stable where, according to James, there were polo ponies until he decided he liked Quidditch better; an empty dairy barn; a stream from which water can be pumped; and a small Quidditch pitch that doubles as a rugby side.

Lily is stunned, and this is all from walking up to the front door.

Sirius, on the other hand, is distinctly unimpressed; he resolutely ignores every look James sends his way, keeping his eyes trained on the white double doors of the mansion.

They make their way up the elegant porch-and before Lily can say a thing, James takes out his wand, slices open the pad of his index finger, and presses it against the door.

"James!" she exclaims, surprised and slightly horrified. He sucks the blood off his fingertip and looks at her.

"We're on very tight security," he says darkly. "Only the blood of a Potter will open that door, and as it happens, I'm the only Potter around."

"Where're your parents?" Sirius suddenly asks, his voice cracking. James's focus turns and an odd, hopeful expression flits across his face before he answers,

"They're in Singapore for the month."

The relief in Sirius's expression is unmistakable.

The inside of the house is just as beautiful as the outside. It speaks of another time, and as they take in the delicate china, the lovely, polished furniture, and the (moving) artwork lining the walls, Lily finds herself wondering how James grew up _not_ completely convinced he lived in the 19th century.

"It's wonderful," she says truthfully, but the two young men beside her appear to have a different opinion. Finally James releases a deep breath and shakes his head.

"Shall we go upstairs?"

--

"I understand." Dumbledore leans back, looking at Remus through crystal spectacles. His bright blue eyes are piercing, though the younger wizard cannot discern what his old headmaster might be thinking. "I will inform Alastor of your dissent, then."

"I'm sorry," says Remus for the third time, but Dumbledore shakes his head.

"I must admit I am disappointed, but it is natural that you don't wish to compromise yourself. By your word, Remus, we will not prosecute Severus Snape."

--

"This is the guest room," James says, letting Lily in. The room is an open, sunny second-story dwelling with three curtained windows, a four-poster, and an en suite bathroom. She marvels at the lovely decorations- yellow paint and delicate lace trimming along the drapes.

"It's perfect," she says quietly, and James takes a few staggered steps back as if he has just realized he is alone in a room with her. That expression unfolds on his face: again, the one that screams of all the trauma he is still battling down- and he quickly moves toward the door.

"I've got to go," he says- no explanation necessary. "Sirius is just across the hall, and I'll be the next door down."

Lily nods, and he bolts.

--

Sirius, who lived with the Potters up until very recently, is (again) unimpressed with the manor. He doesn't want to look around, but rather wants to enjoy the comfort of his former room, enjoy the homeyness of it without the guilt of being a burden.

He has _really_ missed this place.

Lily seems alight with joy, and Sirius feels a little twinge of nostalgia for their times of animosity. He enjoyed posing a challenge for her. It was a… hobby, being cryptic, the same way other people make hobbies of collecting coins or building models.

The first day, James takes merely a moment to poke his head into Sirius's room. "I'm off to add the wards to the north end. Want to come?"

"No," he responds dully, not bothering to lift his head from where he lies sprawled on the bed. A quill turns between his pale fingers as he contemplates the ceiling. "I'm sure you can handle it."

Inside, a little sighing feeling settles in his chest- apathy. He simply doesn't care about anything, especially not the hurt expression that must be on James's face right now.

"Let sleeping dogs lie," Sirius murmurs after his friend doesn't exit the doorway. A smile, unprovoked, curls languidly on his lips as James retreats.

--

Later, Lily comes up to the room and that cheap quill is still twirling between Sirius's fingers. He gives her a cocky grin as she walks in.

"Do you want anything to eat?" she asks, sitting on the edge of his bed. "You've been lying here for hours."

Sirius shrugs. The quill twirls faster. Lily's eyebrows rise.

"How do you do that?"

He abruptly drops the feather on his stomach, dragging his eyes across the ceiling. "I don't know. Don't you have something to do?"

"What is there to do?" she contends. "It's only the three of us here, and no one is talking to the other two. James fell asleep on the window seat in the hall -"

"About time he conked out." Sirius pushes the quill carelessly to the floor and sits up, crossing his legs and looking at her appraisingly. "You look like you could use a bit of a catnap yourself."

She shrugs, ignoring his jab- clearly she does not want to leave, no matter his insinuations. "I've been a bit of an insomniac lately."

A laugh- bitter, barking, but carefully restricted in volume. "Join the club," he answers. "_Nobody_ in the Order sleeps."

"True. I -" She hesitates. "I don't know. It's really a matter of whether we're doing the right thing. I've been wondering that for a long time."

"Is anything right?" Sirius murmurs, and watches as her eyebrows draw together and her mouth turns down in a little frown. He likes that more than he really should. "Our entire moral system is based on what we're told is good and bad. Sometimes you can't question it- now's not the time for an existential crisis."

He almost chokes on his own hypocrisy.

Lily doesn't answer. Instead, she is staring- in the midst of stretching his arms, he has lifted his T-shirt a few inches upward to expose a strip of pale skin.

"What's that?" she asks quickly, and Sirius glances down. He knows immediately, and masks his horror by casually dropping his hands into his lap and saying,

"What's what?"

Lily is silent. A little wrinkle appears between her eyebrows, and he can see she's trying to figure out what he's hiding. He prays she doesn't comprehend.

Finally she looks at him with blank green eyes, an expression as wiped as his own, and says, "Nothing. Never mind."

On another day, he might've marveled at how careful she is. But right now, he is only in shock.

Lily leaves soon, citing hunger and closing the door gently behind her. For the longest time Sirius only sits there, staring fearfully at the doorway and subconsciously tracing the thin scars on his abdomen.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Eugh. I HATE this chapter. You have no idea.


	39. In Which There Is An Emergency

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter thirty-nine**

On the second day at the manor, there is a security breach.

They know because, at breakfast, James stiffens- his eyes flicker closed for a moment, and he says: "I have a bad feeling."

"What?" Lily asks quickly. Beside her, Sirius puts down his spoon. Strawberry-flavored oatmeal sits stirred, but barely touched in the bowl.

James shakes his head roughly, as if to clear his thoughts. "I need to check the map," he answers, and gets up.

In the library of the house there is a tapestry- a worn, woven silk map of the estate. Its purpose is clear- it has been enchanted to show the state of the security wards around the property.

One silk thread, on the north end, is a pulsing purple- the very magic James himself structured the day before. His face pales when he sees this.

"So someone's _here_?" Lily asks, having followed him in. "On the property?"

"No," he says. "Someone – or something – was thrown back and more than likely knocked out – it functions a bit like an electrical fence."

"But is it a real danger, or -?"

Sirius's voice is quiet from the doorway.

"We'll have to look and see, won't we?"

--

The intimacy of the wooded hills- the quietness, the cool air crisp against their skin, the crunch of foliage underfoot- is all ruined by the tense silence between Sirius and James.

It's all straightforward, wands out, alert; and Lily can see James is slipping into "battle" mode- that he is struggling to keep his head above water, so to speak. But this is no companionable trek, and there is no feeling of security, of trust, of having the others there. She can see it's driving him mad.

And yet Sirius doesn't seem to be faring as poorly. He walks just ahead of her, his stride brisk as they ascend toward the border. He says nothing, but his breathing is quick and quiet and fills the emptiness around them.

She watches him, turning the events of the previous night over in her mind. He's wearing jeans and a button-down shirt that falls past his narrow hips; come to think of it, yesterday was the only time she's ever seen him wearing an ordinary T-shirt.

It's not certain what the marks were. She can't know for sure. But as she recalls vividly their appearance- thin, straight lines, criss-crossing each other- she is sure the cause is not natural.

_Maybe they're scars from an Order mission. Or even a fight at school._

But that wouldn't explain why he was so keen on hiding them.

"Are you okay?" James inquires, breaking the silence and startling her. She realizes she's been slowing down. "You've been staring at-" He drops off.

Sirius glances back abruptly, his eyes boring into hers. The expression is painfully defiant.

She swallows- he has already turned away. "It's nothing," she answers quietly, focusing on the back of his head. And then a thought strikes her and she chances a glance at James. "Are _you_ okay?"

He clears his throat. "I'll survive," he responds.

Sirius doubles his pace.

--

They make it to the top of the bluff after about forty minutes of walking; the sun has since made its appearance and all three are short of breath, sweat beaded on their brows.

James immediately goes to the border, which follows a ridge that lines a dried creek bed. It is invisible now, but he reaches out with his wand and it emanates a definite purple, shuddering.

"The breach should be near here," he says doubtfully. "Hopefully whatever it was is still there." He tucks his wand in his back pocket and starts to follow the ridge.

"Where are you going?" Lily demands, coming up beside him.

"I'll go this way," he answers, not looking her in the eye. "You and Sirius follow it that way. Shoot up red sparks if you see something."

"And what do you intend to do if you meet a Death Eater?" she points out coolly. James finally glances up.

There is a brief connection, an electric shock, between his hazel eyes and her green ones. And then it is gone just as quickly, lost to the fear that lately, she knows, has consumed him.

A knot thickens in the base of her throat.

He says, "I can fend for myself. And Sirius can-"

But it doesn't matter what Sirius can do, because they turn to him, and now they see why he has been so oddly silent.

He is standing a few yards away, pale. Swaying. The concern and nausea is written all over his face, and he croaks, "James?"

With that everything changes. Before Lily can even comprehend, James has a hand on his friend's shoulder to steady him and is saying, "Hang on, Sirius. Can you breathe?"

His voice is thin. "Now's not a good time to ask, mate."

James swears under his breath and Lily, heart racing, is hit by the seeming urgency of his manner. "Lily," he says, voice dark, "stay here with Sirius. Don't let him move. I'll be right back."

"Epinephrine in my room," the younger man says, dropping to sit on a large log. James nods and seems ready to panic- the walk is far too long, and Disapparating is impossible on the property- when Lily speaks up.

"You have that wand for a reason," she tells him, kneeling by Sirius. The words are enough.

"_Accio_ epinephrine!"

Sirius is sucking in deep breath of air and determinedly not looking at her.

"What's going on?" she asks quietly, urgently, trying to catch his eye. He looks over and tries to crack a grin, though still breathing harshly.

"Anaphylactic shock," he says, wheezing. "Food-" _wheeze_ "- allergy. I haven't had one for-" _wheeze _"- years."

She nods and squeezes his hand. He doesn't return the motion, only gripping the log and saying nothing more. His skin is now ghost-white.

"Move," James interjects, kneeling also. He's clutching a needle –shaped like a marker- in one hand. Sirius jerks away.

"I'll – do it – myself," he chokes out.

"You'll not," James snaps, and without hesitation he jabs the needle into Sirius's thigh.

--

Sirius opens his eyes.

Vaguely he takes note of the shocking brightness of the sky, and then he realizes it's someone's wand, shining directly in his face.

"Get that out of my face," he spits weakly, and there's a laugh.

"That's the Padfoot I know and love," a voice says, sounding half-relieved and half-sarcastic. "_Nox_."

The light is extinguished, thank _God_, and he slowly adjusts. His eyes struggle to focus- he can barely make out James's face above him.

"That's not much better to look at," he murmurs, but he feels too weak for bitterness and the anger doesn't come, anyway. He tries to sit up, his head pounding, but James pushes him back down.

He's back in his room, his lungs still struggling for air. But it's coming much easier, now. His gaze finally focuses- Lily is at the foot of his bed, James knelt beside it. They both have unreadable expressions on their faces.

With a pang, he realizes someone has removed his shirt.

"I'm cold," he says very quietly, almost childishly. Neither Lily nor James apparently hear him.

"You almost died," Lily says softly after a minute.

"He did not," James says tersely, and the girl closes her mouth. She doesn't look at either of them, but her hands twist anxiously in her lap.

Now the anger _does_ come, for Sirius. How odd.

"With all due respect, Prongs," he grits out, reaching up to touch his pounding temples, "what the _hell_ is that supposed to mean? Did I pass out?"

"Several times." James's tone is clipped. "I've got to -"

He gets up and leaves without speaking further, leaving a plummeting feeling in Sirius's chest- he hates this, hates having yet another Achilles heel.

Why should Sirius Black succumb to something as trivial as warm weather, a little too much exercise, a single _strawberry_?

A fruit. Just a goddamn fruit.

And yet what he's really upset over, what he really wants, is James's pity. He can admit this, if only to himself-

_How many times must I ask for help before I get it?_

Lily slips up to his bedside, kneeling, her hand already dancing across his stomach with a strange curiosity. He lies perfectly still. Her touch is burning him.

"I'm trying to figure you out," she says, and her voice is almost apologetic, with no trace of fear or spite.

He closes his eyes, saying nothing, and lets her fingertips splay out against the fading scars set in warm white skin.

"I don't even know where to begin," she confesses.

Sirius exhales. "Neither do I," he whispers.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Three things-

1. Luckily for Sirius, the epipen was invented in 1978. Whew! That was a close call.

2. I know this is really short. There was going to be more, but it was kind of based around the idea that epinephrine can be injected into the arm, which, I found out upon later research, it can't. My bad.

3. I know all the L/J has been on the backburner lately, but no worries- shit hits the fan around **chapter 44.** Woohoo.

Review, si vous plait!


	40. In Which Safe Arms Await

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter forty**

She remains silent for the longest time, still kneeling, her fingers still tracing his abdomen almost absentmindedly. He chances a glance over and sees that expression on her face that is so familiar, and he gently removes her hand, sitting up.

"I'm not a riddle to be solved," Sirius tells the girl, feeling his heartbeat speed up. He's too exposed, a feeling unnatural and unpleasant to him. But he still says – "You can ask me questions, you know."

Lily rocks back on her heels, then opts to sit beside him on the bed instead, her gaze wandering toward the window.

"Where did this come from?" she wants to know, tapping her collarbone. It is a frank question, but her tone is gentle.

"This?" He laughs almost amiably, brushing the faded bruise. "I was in an accident on my motorbike. Maybe a week and a half ago."

She nods, but her expression is incredulous. "You're so beat up," she says softly.

Sirius's throat constricts, but this time it's not from an allergic reaction. It takes him a few moments, but it's not as hard to get the words out as he always imagined it would be. "I know what you're waiting for me to say," he says, "and I'm trying to get myself to say it, but…"

"I know. I get it." She looks down.

"No, you don't." His tone rises a little in pitch. "It's not something I can just come out and _say_-"

Lily takes his hand, causing him to drop off suddenly. "Then let me ask, Sirius," she tells him, her voice betraying her own shakiness. "What happened to you?"

Sirius pulls his hand away an inch, then hesitates. And slowly, he grips her hand again, his eyes focused on this simple connection. His response is quiet and tentative.

"Last year," he says finally, "I had some… problems."

"At Hogwarts?"

He nods. "Seventh year, you know -"

Lily stands and goes to his chest of drawers, rendering him silent. She digs around for a moment and finds him a fresh button-down shirt, throwing it to him. "Go on."

"Right," he says, pulling it on over his head. His hair falls in his eyes and he brushes it idly away as he talks. "I guess I was- lonely. And a little scared. I didn't exactly have a future lined up for myself."

"Oh, Sirius," she says, sitting again beside him. "Tell me this isn't going where I think it's going."

"I hate to be cliché," he responds, offering her a weak smile. She looks sad then, and he feels a sudden and unexplainable rush of guilt for unloading this on her. "You have to understand- James wasn't there, and I didn't have anyone to talk to."

Lily looks again at the ground. "What kind of problems?"

"And I hadn't any family of my own, so I wanted to get a job and get out as fast as possible- I'd heard rumors about the resistance, but-"

"_What problems_, Sirius?"

His breath hitches in his throat, and he can't look at her when he answers. "Drinking… mostly drinking. I was almost expelled."

"'Mostly'?"

"Clearly there were more," he says with a touch of sarcasm. "Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation, now, would we?"

"Ambiguity doesn't become you," she answers darkly, laying her head on his shoulder. "Continue."

Sirius nearly protests that this is not a bedtime story, but thinks better of it. He is a little more at ease now, thanks to Lily's patient listening. "I would do this odd thing," he says. "Take something like- I'd find a safety pin, or a quill nib, and-"

His index finger is drawing little lines over his abdomen, silent and subconsciously.

"It left scars," he adds needlessly, his mind in many places.

Lily exhales shakily, and his heart misses a beat. And she says, "Okay."

As easily as that, no judgment, no degrading comment or morbid curiosity, and he melts a little more. Tears are already pricking his eyes, but he pinches his nose and says nothing.

She adds, "Did anyone else ever- know about it?"

He brings his knees up to his chest, a rare glimpse of the childishness that has long evaded him. He is, after all, barely 18 years old- a child. But he is also a Black, and these two qualities seem to inherently contradict.

"Peter might've suspected," he finally says. "He was always the one to clean me up." A pause. "He still is."

The unspoken conclusion- _and James isn't_ – hangs in the pregnant air, and Lily doesn't respond. She only looks at him, waiting, and then he can't hold it back anymore; the tears start to slide down his cheeks and he refuses to make eye contact with her, his chest tight and his throat thick.

"I just don't want him to leave me behind," he says desperately, and in his blurred vision she is nodding.

--

James is crying, too.

It's gotten to him, he thinks. For the past few months, he has courted madness; but now it has finally brushed him. Because were he not mad, he would not be sitting in an empty stable, inhaling the smell of straw and crying over his best friend.

He's a _man_. He doesn't _do_ this.

But no matter how hard he tries, he cannot jettison the stark images in his mind- the fine scars on Sirius's body, the way Lily looked at them, the way everything seem to fall together-

- because how can he have been such a terrible friend? How can he have missed the signs for so long, _remained ignorant_ for so long, while his _brother_ suffered?"

"What's happened to you?" he whispers into his curled fists, rocking as he sits on the concrete curb.

"Oh," a voice says softly. "How tragic."

--

Minutes later, it is an odd sight in Sirius's room: he, sitting still on the bed, is hugging his knees and saying nothing. Lily has not moved either, but has settled for leaning her head on his shoulder still. The quiet is weighty, but companionable.

"I'm sorry for dredging this up," she says, breaking the silence. He exhales.

"It's alright," he answers hoarsely. Again, the conversation trails off. The only sound in the room is that of their breathing. Then-

"Did you hear that?" Lily is sitting straight, alert.

Sirius blinks and clears his throat. "Hear what?"

"Listen," she says, and there is a well-timed _thump_ from downstairs. She reaches for her wand. "Someone's-"

"It's just James," he responds, a touch bitterly, but he grabs his wand off the bedside table and stands. "I'll look."

"_We'll_ look," she corrects him, volume low, "and I'll go first. Haven't you had enough trouble for one day?"

"Fuck! Lily!" Sirius's whisper is urgent. He is staring out his window, which overlooks the front grove. "Look!"

She dashes to the window and instantly her heart rate spikes- a figure lies curled on the main path, a dark silhouette against the grey brick. The thumping from downstairs gets louder.

"James," Sirius says, and before she can stop him, he has thrown open the door.

The place erupts into chaos almost instantly. From her place by the window, in a split second Lily hears yells, sees Sirius's body curve out the doorway, and there is a flash of blue light; the smell of sulfur fills the room.

"Death Eaters!" she hears him shout as she wavers for just one second, taken aback. "Lily, go!"

She feels herself spring into action, and suddenly she is out the door, too. Her mind is all but shut down, but her body reacts smoothly when she sees the men on the stairs. Sirius is fighting five of them, and someone sends a curse her way, and she briefly remembers thinking,

_How many Death Eaters did it take to kill Gideon Prewett, again?_

There is an animalistic scream as she charges past Sirius, and it is from her own throat. Magic explodes around her and two Death Eaters are thrown back down the narrow stairs. Another grabs her roughly and she screams again; a moment later Sirius has ripped him off and literally tossed him against the wall.

"_Don't touch her."_ She sees his lips form the words but she can barely hear him over the din of voices.

"_Stupefy! Stupe-_" The red and purple jets of light fly past. There is a crash as teacups smash and paintings are knocked to the floor- a green beam bur4ns bright, right under her arm-

"No! _No! _The girl, you idiot, the-"

Lily sees Sirius take down two men in the corner of her eye; she turns and finds herself face to face with Antonin Dolohov and he is leering like a hyena, and something in her rages, and-

He crumples forward suddenly, the weight of his body knocking her painfully against the stairs. There are more shouts and noises but Lily can only really think about herself- things are going dim- there is, suddenly, a brief silence.

A heartbeat.

And then no spells, but the sound of somebody scrambling up the stairs, and cool hands on the nape of her neck, and past the blur the deep, unfamiliar voice: "She's okay. She must've been hit by the rebound…"

"Idiot, the only thing that hit was her head on the stairs," growled another voice. "Look, she's passing out…"

--

It takes all of Remus's strength not to flinch as Edgar Bones gathers Lily up and drapes her over his shoulder. He wants to tell him to be gentler, but he can't even find his own voice in the noise of the crowded stairwell.

In one corner, Vance and Dearborn are spelling four Death Eaters into handcuffs. Three of them are unconscious and one of them is fighting, but his physical struggle is only half as strong as the language spewing from his mouth. Vance tucks the confiscated wands into her pocket and wrinkles her nose with disgust.

"No- he attacked her-"

Despite the clamor of voices, this one plea, soft, is stark and clear to Remus's ears. He turns. Sirius is staring at a fifth Death Eater, who lies crumpled against the wall. Moody and another man have the former by the shoulders, holding him back, but the man strains to move forward anyway, his fists clenched.

"It's over," Moody growls, as the noise in the room diminishes. "Let's get you back to headquarters. Nothing to-"

"Remus?" Dumbledore's voice is quiet. Remus jolts. He hadn't noticed the elderly wizard there before, knelt over that Death Eater. He hesitantly moves closer.

"Please help Alastor move this young man," the headmaster says, standing. He is gazing down sadly at the still body. "He needs to be taken back to the Ministry. "

When Remus looks, he sees wetness in Dumbledore's eyes. An uneasy feeling rises up in his chest- he's never seen this wizard cry before: the man who is supposed to be as calm and composed as anyone, shedding glistening tears.

"Did you know him, sir?" he asks, thinking the dead man might be an old student.

Dumbledore shakes his head. "No," he replies regretfully, "and it seems I never will."

--

Remus finds himself at the most unlikely of locations. Fortescue's in Diagon Alley is far too cheery, too bright, too new for such messy business as secret war meetings.

But as he enters, feeling out of place and yet strangely nostalgic for his childhood, Florean Fortescue gives him a nervous smile and motions him toward the back stairs.

The place is gravely quiet when he comes in.

It's only a small attic, and too small for the number of people inside. About half the Order seems to be milling about, attending to various tasks, discussing the day's events amongst themselves. But as he pushes past a few older witches by the doorway, he is struck by two things- the stuffiness of these tiny new "headquarters", and the uncanny sight of Albus Dumbledore kneeling over a silent body for the second time that day.

James lies in a makeshift cot, shockingly pale and drawn. Lily and Fenwick are in similar set-ups nearby, except both are stirring, albeit quietly. James, on the other hand, has his eyes closed, and Dumbledore appears almost as if he is trying to solve a riddle.

Remus's first instinct is to go to Lily, but he is halted by a hand on his arm.

"I wouldn't," Sirius says, his voice hoarse and thin. "She's a bit catatonic."

"Is she okay?" he asks, pitch jumping up an octave.

"She'll be fine."

"And-"

"James is fine. Fenwick managed to get hexed, though."

Remus gives him a good, long look- and doesn't like what he sees. "You ought to lie down, mate," he finally says- he's tentative, however, considering the rocky relationship they've fostered. "You don't look well."

"I'm better than any of them."

"Mr. Lupin is right," interjects a new voice. Dumbledore is looking at them from a few yards away, his blue eyes soft, and the noise of the room bubbles down as people turn to look. The old wizard focuses on Sirius. "Mr. Potter will be fine. You do yourself no favor waiting here."

Sirius falters, and Remus sees him giving in. "Well- alright," he finally says, a little gruffly. "I guess I'll Apparate back and…"

"And rest for awhile," Dumbledore finishes gently. "We could all use a good rest."

* * *

**Author's Note:** If your thoughts right now run along the lines of "Wtf..." then don't worry. And if they don't, whew. It makes my job that much easier.

Thanks guys. I really do appreciate the people who have been following this from day one. Every review, favorite, or alert makes me a little more confident in my writing ability. =]


	41. In Which No One Is Okay

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter forty-one**

Lily has the patience to wait until Dumbledore has finished his musing; until Dawlish is revived and sent back on his merry way; until Edgar Bones finishes talking to her in his deep, slow voice ("Your head alright, Mizz Evans?") before she crawls off the cot and over to James. Nobody notices in the murmur of the room- or if they do, they don't say anything.

Luckily, he is just blinking awake- he's been in and out of consciousness for the past few hours- and it takes him only a moment to recognize her as he opens his bleary eyes.

"Are you okay?" he croaks immediately.

"Yes, of course," she answers, though her head is throbbing and her knees are already aching from knelling. "It's been a terrible day- are you-"

"Is Sirius okay?" he wants to know next, ignoring her.

Lily nods, her throat tightening. "You're the only one," she tells him. He turns on his side, away from her, and coughs terribly- she waits a good 30 seconds before he catches his breath and turns back to her.

"Sorry," James says hoarsely. "I feel like shit."

"It probably has something to do with the five Death Eaters who kicked the crap out of you," she says hesitantly, and he cracks a weak smile.

For a long time, he doesn't speak, only looks at her- she's uncomfortable under his gaze. Then a sudden, somber expression crosses his face, and Lily feels a stab of worry.

"They wanted my blood to get in," he murmurs, his eyes half-closing under heavy lids. He gives a great, tired, shuddering sigh. "But they didn't kill me. Why didn't they kill me?"

She finds herself taking her hand, a gesture she's used a lot lately. "I really couldn't care less," she answers, tracing his palm with her thumb, "about the _why_."

He hisses and pulls his hand away.

"What?"

"That's where they cut me."

Lily grasps James's fingers again, albeit more gently, and gingerly examines his palm. The smooth skin is free any marks. "No scars," she tells him, her eyes flickering toward his.

He refuses, again, to make eye contact, and her heart sinks. "Well, it hurts," he says. "Just like the rest of me, come to think of it."

She moves to sit on one of the now-vacant cots, turning her gaze elsewhere. Her skin is warmed, flushed, and the feelings of frustration she has kept so well tucked-away are beginning to smolder again. "It's times like these when I really miss Marlene," she says without a hint of bitterness in her voice.

There is a noise- soft, a nearly-silent intake of breath as James prepares to say something, but people are looking over now, and someone is saying her name, and Dumbledore is carefully conjuring a set of chairs for the remaining members in the attic.

"Go," James says.

She is hesitant as she leaves. James stays. She doesn't look at him again, but he is drifting back into his exhaustion.

"Here you are," Dumbledore says kindly, sliding a chair across to her; it screeches against the wooden floorboards and everyone winces.

"Won't people get a bit suspicious?" asks one of the thirty-something wizards there. "We're not exactly being subtle."

"Don't be naive, Dearborn," Moody grunts. "We're perfectly hidden here."

"Thanks to the _Fidelius_ charm," Dumbledore replies almost amiably, "nobody even saw us walking in. Except, of course, for dear Florean. Such an accommodating fellow."

Moody looks slightly alarmed. "Surely you didn't-"

"Oh, no; the Secret is safe in somebody else's hands," the elderly wizard answers. He settles into the last empty chair and looks around the oval of people. "But I have known Florean long enough to borrow his space every now and again."

Lily is silent. She has never heard of this _Fidelius_ charm before, but she makes a mental note to research it, should she get a chance.

"Very well then. Onto our first order of business," Dumbledore continues, clapping his hands. He turns to Lily. "Your things have all been secured, and I think you may return safely to Cardiff within the week."

Lily hesitates. "Where am I supposed to live until then?" she asks. "What about the safe house?"

"I think you'll find this location sufficient, at least for the next few days," he answers gently. "I recommend you avoid the Leaky Cauldron and other... questionable parts of London. And I have been meaning to-" He turns to face everyone present. "Excellent job, everyone. We have truly serviced Britain today."

Lily speaks up again. "_Sir_," she insists, "please. I don't understand what's going on."

It's a moment before Dumbledore responds. His blue eyes look at her over a pair of thin spectacles, and finally he sighs. "Perhaps we should discuss this in the privacy of my office."

"But you don't-"

But he had already created such an office, a meek blue door extending into what looked like empty air. Someone gives an encouraging cough.

"Well then?" Dumbledore prompts.

Lily rises and, feeling James's gaze on her back, steps through the door.

"You understand, Lily, that every person in this Order remains in grave danger. But none more so than you."

Her heart drums. "What do you mean?"

Dumbledore removes his spectacles, extracts a handkerchief from his pocket, and spends a few moments wiping his lenses absent-mindedly. Again, it is a while before he answers. "For reasons I only tentatively understand, Lord Voldemort has always remained particularly interested in _you_," he says. "Perhaps because you have so cleverly defied him before-"

"When? I-"

"When confronted by his followers. I speculate that you are an escaped prize, to him. But I only speculate."

"But-"

"There are other possibilities," he interrupts, his eyes looking at her with a fierce determination. "But until we can know certainly, it is best to keep you away from danger. Hence the safe house."

"It wasn't exactly _safe_," Lily retorts, seeing no other direction to take. Her voice rises a little in pitch. "If the security wards hadn't summoned you, or however they worked-"

"The wards did nothing," Dumbledore assures her. "We were waiting."

And suddenly James's voice interjects, incredulous and wavering, and their heads snap to the doorway. "What do you mean?" he demands, leaning heavily on the doorjamb for support.

"James," Dumbledore warns.

James pays no heed. "Waiting?" he wants to know. "How could you have known, when we didn't until the ward reacted-"

"Close the door."

He falters and, exhausted and embarrassed, obliges. Lily quickly stands and he collapses into her chair.

"You should be lying down," she says, but he ignores her.

"The ward was set off by a dog," Dumbledore answers, "that was killed before it even got across. And to answer your question, James: yes, we knew. Lord Voldemort has a knack for following even the best hidden. It was a prime opportunity for-"

"You used me as bait," Lily says blankly.

Eyes focus on her.

"I am very sorry," Dumbledore finally replies, sad. "Yes, I can admit that now- another mistake to add to my extensive collection. But it was not just you."

"Us? Why would they- Sirius and me?" James is weakening now, again, and it suddenly occurs to Lily that she still doesn't know what happened to him- only the vivid image, his stark outline against the ground, pulses angrily in her mind.

And somewhere out of that fog of recollection she hears Albus Dumbledore's voice again, cutting through the thick air: "...don't have the resources to verify my..."

His _suspicions_, that is. Lily's tongue tangles with the word as she mouths it to herself.

Nothing is making sense anymore.

Lily finds herself looking at James as he turns restlessly in his cot, and she pulls the covers tight up to her neck and wonders when she first began to fear the dark.

What a silly superstition- dreaming there is a murderer, a madman, a monster lurking where she can't see him, waiting for her to fall asleep.

Lily pulls the covers over her head.

But of course, there _is_ a murderer lurking somewhere, looking for her, and it all comes down to why.

Why her? Why now? What is so special about Lily Emily Evans that Lord Voldemort is so intent on having her- well- killed?

Even though James cannot dream peacefully, it seems, she feels suffocated in the silence of the now-empty room- in the fear that brushes its fingers over her toes- and wishes she could be like him: asleep... worried about imagined nightmares instead of real ones.

Sirius moves apprehensively through his apartment, discomfited by the silence of the place. It is dark now, no moonlight streaming through the shutters, the candles all burned down. He searches for the light switch and can't even remember where it is. It's only been 48 hours, but it feels like forever. The day seems to have stretched on for miles, all its events too tumultuous and earth-shaking for his comfort.

He nearly died today. _Twice_..

And for one brief moment, he thought he lost...

Young Sirius's mind wanders back to that morning, to the sensation of being too warm, of nausea lingering under his esophagus. He touches his thigh where the jab went in, and James's determined, scared face swims in front of his eyes.

James...

He misses James. There is no doubt about it. After all this time, after all that has happened, the fights and the tension and the distinct feeling of drifting apart, he still wants nothing more than James: his best friend in the world.

Except his best friend in the world is at headquarters instead, and Sirius alone understands why, really _he_ could go home and the others couldn't.

_He_ is not the main character of this story, the protagonist of this plot. As always, James is in the center. And sometimes the person at the center needs nothing more than to be left there, alone, while others revolve distantly around him.

This Sirius knows, and he also knows that he will not settle for it. He will linger here, patient, until his friend can break away from his battle wounds and come back to where he belongs.

"Cheers," Sirius says when he finds a bottle of rum in the kitchen cupboard. He dusts it off, uncorks it in the dark, and when he goes to take a swig- he wavers, just for one moment.

So young. So young.

He's only eighteen.

But the leering faces of Death Eater plague him again, and he imagines himself one of those faces, slipping namelessly under a cruel, steely mask.

The alcohol burns angrily all the way down.

Perhaps he'll be able to sleep tonight.

Remus's heart is heavy like that of a man who knows too much.

The knowledge presses insistently against his temples, trying to bust him at the seams. He has always been a smart person, one who often thinks too much. But _this _feels different. He doesn't like it. The niggling at his conscience keeps him up well into the night.

It's not as if he has anyone to talk to- the apartment is horribly lonely now- and he's hardly had the same war experiences that keep James and the others miserably awake.

And so Remus, with pale half-circles under his eyes, drifts off to sleep: not fitful, but calm. Quiet. His breath moves in and out evenly. One would not realize the grave thought running through his half-awake, exhausted mind:

_Lily isn't safe._

_Voldemort wants Lily._

_We need to hide her._

Because, no matter the person or place, some variance of this worry exists in every person in the Order.

Remus only manages, however, a few hours of uneasy drowsing until he sits up slowly, in a cold sweat; his head is light and his vision won't focus properly and suddenly he remembers the real reason for his anxiety.

A fear begins to wash over him now, a panic so familiar that it's almost soothing, like the downy feathers of mother hen's breast. He revels in it, briefly closing his eyes and wondering how on earth he could've forgotten the moon.

The young man feels the creaking of his bones as his hands turn into paws and his nails into claws. His vision is black, then sharply focused. Everything begins to seem amplified by ten- colors, smells, sounds- the sensation of clothes ripping off his back.

Remus Lupin has the slipping conscience to wonder if he took his potion tonight. The wolf, moments later, can't care less.


	42. In Which Something Is Revived

**and nothing but the truth**

**chapter forty-two**

"I heard from Narcissa that there have been quite a few arrests," Walburga is saying, her voice as sharp as her expression. She is examining the family tapestry with her back turned to Sirius, and all he can see is the crinkle of a frown on the corner of her mouth. He has never wanted so badly to just leap up and killer her, now, when she is so vulnerable to attack.

But she's only his mother, a useless old witch with too many things to say, and Sirius, sitting on a chair against the wall, knows she is not worth the prison sentence.

The room is dark, like his mood. Sirius's breathing is quick and controlled, and his hands are almost shaking. He hopes Walburga will not notice. Right now, for her, she has been almost sweet (a generous term) and he doesn't wish to break the peace. The suspense and fear is what restrains him – when every bone in his body is screaming to get out of there.

It has been so long since Sirius ever loved her. Any joyful memories he once had of this decrepit place have faded, to be replaced with a bitterness he doesn't imagine he could erase.

"Yes," he finally says, realizing his too-long pause. "Aurors at work. They'll learn when He comes to power."

"You're damned right they will," Walburga snaps, and she takes her wand and blows off someone's face angrily, a little fiery _puff_ of air. The smell of singed fabric rises to Sirius's nose. "As you did –" she spat this out, but the tone was almost gentle, for her. "Now if only you could get your Potter friend back on track. It's a _shame_, really, the way that family associates itself with filth – I suppose the wealthy can afford not to care for what's _truly_ of value –"

Sirius's blood is boiling, but he curls his fingers around the rim of his chair and bites his tongue, hard. He focuses instead on the ruined tapestry – a smoky blot where Regulus Black's name used to be.

Unfortunately this only serves to further anger him. He can't handle it – he wants to kill her – he is so close to doing it, but then Walburga turns around and he releases a breath, and he appears – only appears – to be calm.

"I'm not friends with James anymore," he lies, his expression flickering between hatred and regret. He hopes she interprets it as hatred for James, regret for James. "For those very reasons."

"Pity," she responds, looking anything but sorry about it.

"But Narcissa has been very – involved, then?" he asks cautiously, measuring his tone carefully. It's fortunate that his mother is not an altogether careful witch – only a prideful one – because Sirius does not find himself very convincing. His face heats.

"Of course," she declares. "Your cousin and her husband are as _involved_ as one can be – they're the true pride of the family; I only wish it had been one of _my_ own children –"

Her face is dark and nasty as she says this, leering at Sirius. He doesn't quite register. "Her husband," he repeats, hesitant. "Narcissa was married."

"To Lucius Malfoy. A good pureblooded boy. I wanted her for Regulus but _he_ turned out to be such a disappointment –"

It takes all of Sirius's strength not to be sick.

* * *

The morning crawls, warm, into the room and under the bed sheets, onto the gentle blue quilt that Remus's mother gave him when he moved out.

He pulls his eyes stubbornly open and blinks unhappily against the bright sun for a moment, wincing.

And after a few moments, he registers something. And he is in awe.

Remus has just _slept through_ a transformation.

The young man is used to not remembering the events of a full moon, but not because he wasn't conscious for them. All he knows is that he's lying in bed, no sign whatsoever that last night, at some point, he turned into a large, tuft-tailed werewolf – except the slight nausea and his typical headache.

And it may sound strange, but Remus has never felt so good in his life.

* * *

Fabian Prewett is dying.

Lily hears these words and thinks that she has never felt so numb. He _has_ been dying, for what seems like forever now, dying the same way Gideon did except much, much more slowly.

For some reason, everyone has become accustomed to the disappearance of the people they know, to the fading of lives from existence, one by one. Somehow, Lily would not be surprised were she next.

It's Elle who tells her, Elle Goldeir. The Squib who lives with her (or did) and passes quietly, unnoticed, into every situation. The Squib whose presence and purpose Lily now thoroughly understands, thanks to Dumbledore's recent diatribe.

The girl is almost comical, standing there in sweatpants and a puce cardigan. But the message is decidedly somber

"Perhaps you should visit," Elle finally suggests, met with uncertain silence.

Lily pauses, and the attic of Fortescue's ice cream parlor is eerily empty of sound for a moment, only filled by the rustling of papers and the swish of clothes as the redhead packs up her things to go back to Wales. "I don't know him very well," she says, stuttering at the thought.

Elle shrugs a little sadly.

"I need to see Sirius," Lily says, and she doesn't know why that man is the first to come to mind, but she feels overwhelmed with a desire to see him, to converse with him about life and death.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Hello there! It has been such a long time... so, obviously, this is quite short - my explanation for that being that this is entirely old material that I found in my notebook and decided to post just to get you guys interested again. In all honesty it's been so long since I thought about _ANBTT_ that it will take me quite a while to get warmed up into writing it again. But it makes me very sad to be so close to the ending and not be able to finish. :/

In other news...

I got a very thorough review from **A Cardiff Gal** who noted that the accuracy of my description of Cardiff left much to be desired... well, all I can say to this is that I apologize! I can't imagine how aggravating it must be to have your uni described so differently that it obviously is. Haha. I could make excuses about being American or being too young to know how unis work (or at least, I was when I started this story), but let's face it, I should've done my research better. Sorry! But for the sake of fluidity, I'll just keep describing it how I have, though I doubt much of the story will actually be set at Cardiff from here on. :3


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